A Final Chapter
by hbndgirl
Summary: Two years after "The Arrow and the Chalice", the Drews' and Hardys' mysterious enemies resurface, bent on finishing their revenge once and for all. With all their lives hanging in the balance, Frank, Joe and Nancy must all confront their pasts - both the past they know about and the past they don't. Part 4 of the Chapters series.
1. Chapter 1

J.M.J.

A Final Chapter

 _A/N: Hello and welcome back! This is part 3 of the "Chapters" trilogy which begins with_ Curse of the Scottish Play _and_ The Arrow and the Chalice _. If you haven't read those two, you'll probably have a lot of questions about what is going on in this one. I try to explain where I can, but that's not so easy to do without just reiterating the entire first two stories, so the best thing would be to check those ones out before starting in on this one._

 _As any of you who have been following this series from the start knows, I abandoned this story for a few months. I'd like to apologize for that and thank you for not giving up on me entirely. I've had a lot going on in my life since then, including putting a ton of work into an original idea. I also was dealing with some burn-out on the whole fanfiction scene, mostly because I really didn't like the way this story was turning out. I've been rewriting it, and I think it's a lot better now. At least, I hope it is!_

 _That being said, if you think you've already read chapter 1, you haven't read this chapter 1, so go ahead and take a look at it. You won't want to miss it, because I get right into the action. My plan is to post on Mondays and Thursdays from here on out, but that's not set in stone by any means._

 _Thank you again for reading this and for your patience in waiting for it. Thank you especially to everyone who left reviews on the original version: sm2003495, max2013, MAN UTD, BMSH, Guest, EvergreenDreamweaver, and Cherylann Rivers. I really appreciate your input, and hopefully I'll do better by you all in this version._

Chapter I

"It's about time." Ned Nickerson was leaning against his car with his arms crossed, waiting more than just a little bit impatiently for Frank Hardy to be ready to go. When Frank finally appeared, carrying an armload of bags, he jumped up to his feet. "You're going to make me late for my date."

"Only if you drive about thirty miles an hour the whole way to River Heights," Frank retorted. He stopped, struggling to hold onto all the bags. "Will you open the trunk?"

"Oh, right." Ned pressed the button on the key fob, and the trunk opened.

Frank dropped all his bags in at once, making the back end of the car sink down. "Thanks for giving me a ride and a place to crash, by the way."

Frank was twenty and Ned was twenty-one. They were both attending Emerson College, near River Heights. Frank was from Bayport, half the country away on the east coast. He'd come to Emerson to study forensics, as the otherwise small college had one of the best forensics programs in the country. This was the end of his second year there.

He had driven out to Emerson at the beginning of the semester, but by sheer bad luck, someone had crashed into his car in a hit-and-run accident while it was parked outside his apartment. The accident had done a lot of damage, and the car was going to be in the repair shop for at least another week. To make matters worse, his lease ran out right after finals week, and his landlord wasn't willing to let him stay there even an extra week without renewing his contract for another three months. When he had told Ned about his problems, Ned had offered to let him stay at his parents' house, where he was going back to since he couldn't stay in his fraternity house over the summer. The only problem was that Ned had a date with his girlfriend, Nancy Drew, that evening and was in a hurry to be on the road.

"You're sure your parents don't mind me staying at their house?" Frank asked again when they were in the car and Ned had pulled away from the curb.

"Nah," Ned assured him. "For that matter, when I called them about it and told them about your predicament, Mom offered to let you stay before I could even ask."

"Well, I have to admit, this is better than paying for a hotel for a week," Frank said. "Especially when I'm supposed to be saving my money."

"Hopefully this isn't hurting your chances of getting a summer job back home," Ned commented. "It's hard enough to find jobs that start and end at the right time."

"I don't have to worry about that," Frank replied. "I already found a job a couple months ago, and it doesn't start till the middle of June."

"Doing what?"

"Dad's secretary is going on maternity leave from the middle of June to the beginning of August, so he offered to let me fill in for her."

"So your dad's basically paying you to help him solve mysteries," Ned concluded. "Don't tell Nancy about that. She'll be green with envy."

Frank laughed. "She shouldn't be too jealous. After all, she only a few months away from getting her private detective's license herself. That's one step ahead of me."

"A few months from applying for her license, anyway," Ned corrected him. "She has to be twenty-one before she can even submit the application. After that, it'll take at least another six months. I'm sure she'll have everything done as soon as she can, though."

"Knowing Nancy, she will," Frank agreed.

Ned glanced at the clock on his dashboard. "Speaking of Nancy, I really am going to be late if I have to drive all the way over to Mapleton to drop you off and then come back to River Heights. I'd better call her and let her know."

He grabbed his phone and placed the call. Nancy picked up a few moments later.

"Hi, Ned! You're not checking up on me to make sure I'm remembering our date this time, are you?"

"No," Ned told her. "You said you'd remember this time, and if a guy can't trust his own girlfriend, who can he trust? Besides, you're not working on a mystery right now. Unless – you haven't found one since this morning, have you?"

"Nope," Nancy replied with a chuckle. "And even if I had, I would have put it on hold until tomorrow. So, what is up?"

"I was just letting you know that I'll probably be a little late tonight," Ned told her. "You heard about Frank's car, right? Well, now that school's out and his apartment's lease is run out, he needs a place to stay until it's fixed. Our parents are letting him stay at our place, so I have to drop him off there before I can pick you up."

"I've got a better idea," Nancy said. "We were just going to go out for dinner and a movie, right? You can pick me up. We can all go over to Mapleton, drop Frank off, and then you and I can have dinner at a restaurant there. We can still be back in River Heights in plenty of time for the movie, it works out to the same number of trips back and forth, and I'll get to see you a little earlier."

"Sounds good, especially that last part," Ned replied. He glanced at Frank. "As long as Frank doesn't have any objections –"

Frank, who hadn't been able to hear the conversation, shrugged. "As long as she's not suggesting that I walk to Mapleton, it's fine with me."

"He says the walk will do him good." Ned smirked. "We'll be there in about two hours."

As Ned ended the call, he reached into the pocket of his coat to make sure the little box was still there. It was, and he held it tightly. This was going to be an evening he'd never forget.

A little more than two hours later, Ned pulled up into the Drews' driveway. Nancy had been watching from the window and came hurrying out as soon as she saw the car. Frank surrendered his place in the front seat to her and climbed into the back. After greeting Ned, Nancy turned around to say hello to Frank.

"How'd your finals go?" she asked after they had exchanged greetings.

Frank groaned. "Ugh. Don't remind me. I passed everything, and that's the main thing. It was grueling, though."

"Says the guy with the four-point-oh GPA," Ned added.

"Hey, that's why it was grueling," Frank defended himself. "If I didn't care about my grades, it wouldn't be half as bad."

"Not to mention that now that you've got four semesters down with straight A's, you have to keep that reputation up," Nancy said. "It's only going to get worse from here."

Frank nodded. "Yeah. And then there's going to be graduate school and licensing and boards."

"Sounds fun." Nancy made a face. "You'll probably wish you would have gone for something less intense like Joe before it's over. Speaking of which, how's Joe doing? He's actually been talking to me on a regular basis the last few months, so I've been taking that as a good sign."

"I think that's a fair assumption," Frank replied. "He seemed pretty normal the whole time I was back home for Christmas break. He's even been sending me some weird memes that I'm at a complete loss to understand, so that's a good sign. I think."

"That's good," Nancy said. "For a while there, I was afraid things would never go back to normal."

"Not as much as I was," Frank admitted. "I just hope it doesn't start up again."

"It's been over two years," Ned protested. "That Lynn Morgan or Helena Markovich or whatever her name is must have given up by now."

Nancy and Frank exchanged glances. They weren't so sure. Two years earlier, a mysterious woman who had given her name as Helena Markovich one time and Lynn Morgan another had appeared out of nowhere, intent on getting revenge for a case that Fenton Hardy and Carson Drew had solved seventeen years ago now. It had been a terrible case for several reasons, not least of which being that Carson's wife and Nancy's mother had been killed in a car accident while the investigation was still in progress. There had been two suspects who had modeled a series of murders off Sherlock Holmes mysteries. These two had been brothers, Cliff and Dan Moriare. Cliff had been killed before he could be captured, but Dan, who had not done any of the actual killings and was therefore only an accessory, had served almost fifteen years in prison before being released early for good behavior. Where this strange woman fit in was hard to say, especially for Frank and Joe who had never heard the full story. Whatever had happened, Fenton had never wanted to talk about it.

The case two years ago hadn't been any better. Basically everything had gone wrong from beginning to end. Several other people who had also been enemies of the Moriares had been murdered. The daughter of one of them, who was named Clarissa Margot, had disappeared in September and no one had been able to find a trace of her since, except when she turned up briefly near River Heights in December. The mysterious woman and Dan Moriare had also found an ally in a boy who had only been seventeen at the time, Terry Shanth, who had implicated himself in the murder of his own mother just before vanishing as Clarissa had. These people had also arranged for a self-styled Robin Hood, who had nonetheless been very helpful to Nancy, to be arrested, and made sure he thought that it was Nancy who had turned him in. None of the culprits had been captured, except for a few hired guns who hadn't known much of anything. The worst of all was that both Joe and his friend Iola Morton had gotten shot. For a long time after that, Joe had been very depressed and just barely willing to work on any cases. It was only recently that he had started to make a comeback. The last thing any of them wanted was for that case to be repeated.

Nancy shook off the dour mood after a minute or two. "No sense worrying about it."

"Yeah." Frank tried to smile. "She's probably forgotten all about us by now."

"Say," Nancy said brightly, determined to change the subject. "How's Callie doing at Princeton? I'm still impressed that she's actually going there. Sure makes me look pathetic."

Frank smiled for real at the mention of his girlfriend's name. "She's doing great. She's got an almost perfect GPA, she's made a lot of friends, and she loves it there."

"She probably loves it so much she's sorry to have to go back to Bayport for the summer," Ned teased him.

"Not a chance," Frank replied. "We've both been counting the days till school gets out. Of course, neither of us bargained on a whole extra week."

After that, the conversation turned to light subjects. It wasn't far from River Heights to Mapleton, but Ned took a short cut off the highway to speed things up anyway. There were several sharp turns in the road, and Ned had to slow down to get around them. It was a good thing he did. He had scarcely gotten around one of the corners when he had to slam on the breaks to avoid an overturned car on the road.

Nancy, Ned, and Frank stared at the mangled wreck in horror for a moment, and then bolted out of their own car to see if there was anyone inside who needed help. Frank reached it first and bent down to look inside. Suddenly, he felt someone grab him from behind. He tried to break away, but the assailant clapped a piece of cloth over his nose and mouth, and a few moments later, everything went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

J.M.J.

 _A/N: I know this is earlier than I said it would be, but you guys probably don't mind. Thank you all so much for reading this story. In particular, thank you to max2013 and Guest for your reviews and to Cherylann Rivers for the review you PMed me._

Chapter II

"I never expected anything so fancy, Joe," Iola said as Joe helped her into her chair. He had taken her to one of the best restaurants in Bayport. Even a few months ago, it would have completely shocked her, but recently Joe's tastes had seemed to go up from hamburgers and French fries. Nonetheless, she was still surprised.

Joe took his seat across from her. "I felt like I owed you something," he admitted.

Iola was about to ask him what he meant, but the waitress interrupted as she came to give them their menus and take their drink orders.

"I guess soda will have to do for now," Joe said with a grin. "Champagne will have to wait for a few years."

"And a few dollars," Iola added. "How can you afford this, Joe?"

Joe pretended to look hurt. "Don't worry about that. I'm not thinking about money tonight. We just finished our first year of college, and I've got something really important to talk to you about." He paused for a moment, trying to find the right words. "Have I ever told you that you're the most incredible person ever?"

Iola blushed. "I think you've said a few things to that effect."

"I should say it more often, because it's absolutely true," Joe said. "I don't know anybody else who would have put up with me for the last two years. Well, except my parents and Frank, but they kind of had to."

"Let's not talk about this right now," Iola protested. "It's in the past. That's where it needs to stay."

"But it can't just always stay there," Joe told her. "We've got to talk it through before we can put it to rest. At the very least, you have to let me apologize."

"We went through it together, Joe," Iola replied.

"That's the problem." Joe took in a deep breath. "We didn't go through it together. I kept pushing you away, and you – you didn't need to stick with me. I wouldn't have blamed you if you didn't."

"I –" Iola began, but she was almost relieved to be interrupted.

"Hey, what's up, you guys?" Biff Hooper, one of Joe's best friends from school, grabbed a chair and pulled it up to Joe and Iola's table. He didn't seem to notice how embarrassed they looked.

"What are you doing here?" Joe asked, appreciating the interruption much less than Iola had. He'd been planning this evening for several weeks now, and he had wanted it to go perfectly. Ever since that case two years ago, his and Iola's relationship had been rocky at best, and he knew it was his own fault. It had been a terrible and confusing time when he hadn't been sure whether it would be worse to let Iola go or to let her be close to him and take the chance at being hurt again. He'd finally gotten up the nerve to get everything out in the open, and so Biff's intrusion was especially unwelcome.

"Working, actually," Biff said. "I just got a job here for the summer, and they say they'll work with my class schedule come next fall. It's not really my style to eat at a place like this, but the tips are looking like they'll be out of this world."

"You, working as a waiter?" Iola's disbelief was mirrored in her voice. "What happened to your mechanic job?"

"Uh," Biff stumbled around, not quite wanting to own up to the facts. "It turns out mechanics are a little more complicated than I thought. I might have gotten fired after an incident with a transmission and an unhappy customer."

"Well, then, it's a good thing you won't have to work on any transmissions in a restaurant," Joe broke in, doing his best to keep his tone even. It wasn't so easy these days. "Speaking of which, shouldn't you go back to work now?"

"Just got off," Biff said, not taking the hint. "And I'm starved. Hey, if I stay and eat with you guys, I can get you an unbelievable discount. They really treat their employees all right here."

Iola grinned and glanced at Joe, amused as always by Biff. She just hoped Joe was as amused as she was. The last thing she wanted was for anything to happen to upset him.

"Look, Biff, I appreciate the offer, but does this look like a high school reunion?" Joe asked, struggling even more not to snap.

"We all went to high school, so yeah," Biff replied. "Have you guys ordered yet? You really need to try the smoked salmon. It costs an arm and a leg, but I can tell you right now it's worth it."

"Biff," Joe said, decided he'd have to be direct if he was going to get anywhere, "Iola and I are on a –"

A loud crash, reverberating throughout the restaurant, cut him off. Everyone, including Iola and Biff, fell silent as they turned to look toward the sound. A mortified-looking waitress was standing next to the heap of shattered plates on the floor which she had dropped, biting her lip and trying not to cry.

The only one who didn't look was Joe. The loud, unexpected sound took him back immediately to a pathway in an overgrown yard. The sound of a shot echoed in his ears, and he felt Iola fall against him. He jumped up, thinking desperately that he needed to protect her if he could. He could practically hear Terry Shanth sneer at him, _"You don't have your girlfriend to hide behind this time."_

He wasn't sure what happened after that. The next thing he remembered was Iola's arm around him as she told him over and over again that everything was all right and Biff and several other people were standing around uncomfortably close, offering suggestions and asking questions. He turned his head to look at Iola, who was watching him intently.

"You're okay," she said once more. "It's all right. There's nothing to worry about."

Joe took in a deep breath and tried to calm himself. "Yeah." He glanced around at all the people about him, and suddenly started to feel like he couldn't breathe again. He needed to get out of here.

"Let's go." Iola seemed to read his mind.

Biff helped clear the way through the well-meaning but at the same time annoying spectators. Once he was outside, Joe felt a little better. He was feeling well enough, in fact, to be embarrassed about what had happened. That hadn't happened for several months now, and he had begun to hope maybe it that much, at least, was over. Now, it looked like he was still going to be dealing with it for a long time to come. Worse still, half the town had seen it this time. They'd probably all be talking about how the younger Hardy Boy had finally lost it.

"Do you guys want me to give you a ride home?" Biff asked, still looking at Joe with concern. He wasn't at all sure what had just happened, but if Joe was in trouble of any kind, he was determined to help.

"I don't –" Iola started to say, but she stopped herself as Joe said at the same time, "I'd appreciate it."

They took Biff's car, and Iola and Joe sat in the back. Biff glanced at them in his rearview mirror.

"I feel like a personal chauffer," he joked, hoping to lighten the mood. "Where to?"

Iola tried to grin, despite her worry, and half-heartedly joked back, "Home, James."

By the time they reached the Hardy home, Joe was much recovered. After Biff had pulled into the Hardys' driveway, he stayed in his seat for a moment later.

"Thanks, Biff," he said finally.

"Don't mention it," Biff replied. "Although if you insist on giving me a tip, I won't say no."

"Put it on my bill," Joe teased back.

Both Iola and Biff breathed little sighs of relief. Joe responding to Biff's humor had to be a good sign. They were at a loss to explain what had happened, but their main concern was that Joe was all right.

"Sorry I spoiled the evening, Iola," Joe said, turning to her next. "I was hoping so much that everything would be perfect, and then I was the one to ruin it."

"You didn't ruin anything," Iola assured him. "It's okay. We can go out another night."

"I owe you an explanation, though." Joe glanced at Biff. "You, too. I – I'd rather not talk about it right now, though. Maybe tomorrow or the next day or whatever."

"Hey, don't worry about it, man," Biff told him. "You don't owe me anything, other than a taxi fee. And just to prove what a great guy I am, I'll waive that, just this once."

"Oh, wow, your generosity knows no bounds," Joe replied, even managing to smile a little. "But really. I'll give you a call when I'm ready to talk about it." He grabbed the door handle and started to turn it.

Iola noticed that there was no car in the driveway. "Are your parents here? We could stay with you till they get back if you want."

"I –" Joe was about to refuse, wanting to be alone, but then he reminded himself that that wouldn't be best. "If you want, sure. Since we can't have a fancy dinner, I can at least treat you to some leftovers."

"If it's your mom's or your aunt's cooking, it'll be even better than the restaurant," Biff said. "I'm all for it."

The three went inside, and within minutes were warming up the remains of a casserole that the Hardys had had for supper the evening before. Biff and Iola noticed that joking and being upbeat was helping Joe, so they kept it up. Before long, Joe was feeling as much like his old self as he ever did these days.

It was past eleven before Fenton and Laura Hardy and Fenton's sister Gertrude returned. They found Joe and his friends playing a card game that Biff knew and that seemed to involve more shouting and throwing cards around than anything else. All three of them were laughing heartily.

"What's going on here?" Laura asked, caught off-guard by the noisy game when she expected her younger son to be off on a date.

"Nothing much, Mrs. Hardy," Biff said. "I've just been teaching these two how to play Kems. You want to join in? It's even better with more people."

"It looks a little intense," Laura replied.

Aunt Gertrude shook her head. "If you three don't keep it down, the neighbors are going to call the cops on you. You realize it's almost midnight."

Instinctively, Joe glanced at his phone to check the time. At the exact same moment, a call came through from Frank's phone. "I didn't know Frank ever stayed up this late," he joked as he pressed the button to answer. "Hi, Frank."

There was no reply for a moment. When it came it wasn't Frank's voice, but a woman's instead. She only said one sentence: "The game is afoot."


	3. Chapter 3

J.M.J.

 _A/N: I know I said I would have a Monday/Thursday release schedule for the chapters for this story, but I doubt I'll get too many complaints if I change it to every two or three days, so that's what I'll be doing from here on out._

 _Thank you for continuing to read! Thank you especially to max2013, Cherylann Rivers, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter._

Chapter III

When Ned woke up, it was dark. His head hurt, and he felt like he was going to be sick. For several minutes, he couldn't remember where he was or what had happened. Then it all started flowing back. The accident they'd come across, Frank and Nancy and him getting out of the car to help, someone grabbing him from behind and putting a rag over his face. At once, he sat up and looked around for Nancy, but she wasn't there. The faint moon showed that he was on a lonely, deserted, and completely unfamiliar road somewhere in the country, and he was all alone. Even his car was nowhere in sight.

He fought back a surge of panic. He had to stay calm and work out what to do. He was safe, that much was evident. Had these unknown attackers been after Nancy or Frank or both? Or had they left all three of them in different places for some unknown reason? That didn't make sense. He needed to try to remember everything. His head was still foggy, so he couldn't be sure, but he didn't think he had seen anything, except the wrecked car. That had probably been a decoy.

His first thought was to call Joe. Obviously, Joe would know what to do. He fumbled through his pockets, looking for his phone. His hand fell on a little velvet box, and he froze. Letting out a deep breath, he pulled it out of his pocket and opened it. The moon sparkled on the diamond inside. At least, whoever had attacked them hadn't taken it, although Ned would have much rather had them take the ring than take Nancy. A choking sob welled up in his throat.

"Keep it together," he told himself aloud.

He found his phone in his other pocket. Seeing that the reception was good, he breathed a silent prayer of thanks. A bad connection was the last thing he needed now.

HBNDHBND

"The game is afoot."

The caller hung up as soon as she said that, giving Joe no chance to ask questions. Even if she had, he probably wouldn't have taken it. That one sentence, coming from this phone number, told him everything. At once, he could feel himself slipping into panic, but he shook his head. He couldn't do this now.

"What is it, Joe?" he heard his dad's voice break into his thoughts, bringing him back to himself a little.

"It wasn't Frank," Joe managed to say. "It was a woman. All she said was, 'The game is afoot.'"

Fenton went nearly as pale as his son, the significance of the words not lost on him. Laura gasped, and Aunt Gertrude frowned and folded her arms. Iola and Biff merely looked blankly at the Hardys and each other.

"I don't get it," Biff said finally. "What does that mean?"

"It's a Sherlock Holmes reference," Fenton replied, his voice breaking. "It means they're back."

"Who?" Biff furrowed his brow, still feeling that he was missing something important. Suddenly, it dawned on him. "You don't mean that Terry creep, do you?"

Joe winced to hear the name said so bluntly, but at the same time, it was almost a relief. It broke a little bit of the spell for him to be referred to as "that Terry creep."

"Yeah," Joe said.

"Frank said he'd be staying with Ned Nickerson until his car is ready," Laura said. "Do you have his number, Joe? Maybe someone just stole Frank's phone."

Joe doubted this, but trying to track down the last people who might have seen Frank was the best next step, no matter what. "Yeah, I do." He found the number in his contact list and placed the call. There was no answer, and so he left a message: "Ned, it's Joe. Call me back as soon as you get this."

He tried Nancy's phone next, but again there was no answer. Frustrated, he left the same message and said, "Don't they ever answer their phones?"

"I'll call Carson." Fenton went into the next room to place the call.

"Isn't there something we can do?" Iola asked, not liking the pressure.

"Not really. Not until we know what's going on," Joe replied through gritted teeth. It wasn't easy to stay calm under these circumstances, but he needed to stay calm. He couldn't freak out now.

Laura came and put an arm around her son's shoulders, knowing how hard he was struggling. "It's going to be all right, Joe. Everything's going to turn out fine. It always has before."

"I know." Joe nodded. A voice inside was nagging at him, saying, "What if this time it's not?" He tried not to listen to it.

Biff was watching the scene uncomfortably. In the last two years, Joe had been very distant from all his friends. In fact, up until about last December or so, he hadn't talked to any of them unless they started the conversation, and even then, he always acted like he wanted to get away from them more than anything. Naturally, this led his friends to wonder about it and talk it over amongst themselves a lot and constantly pester Frank to tell them what was going on, but none of them had really started to figure it out until tonight. But now, after the incident in the restaurant and now this, Biff was starting to put things together. He glanced at Iola, and each of them could see that the other was thinking the same things.

"Do you want us to go?" Biff asked suddenly. "I mean, I don't want to be in the way."

Before anyone could answer, Joe's phone started to ring. Joe snatched it up at once and saw Ned's name on the screen. "Hello?" he said anxiously. "Ned, did you get my message?"

Ned didn't respond to Joe's question. "Joe, listen. Someone's got Nancy and Frank. I – I don't know what to do."

Joe felt like someone had punched him in the pit of the stomach. So, they did have Frank. And Nancy, too. This was just getting worse. When he tried to talk, he found his throat dry, and so it was in a croaking voice that he asked, "What happened?"

"We were driving, and we saw an accident," Ned told him. He sounded slow and distracted. "We – I stopped, and we got out to help. Someone grabbed me from behind and knocked me out with chloroform or something."

"Where are you now?" Joe asked.

"I don't know," Ned admitted. "Somewhere out in the country. I – Nothing's familiar around here."

"All right. Um –" Joe felt that he was literally the most unqualified person in the world to be taking charge of this situation. He wished his dad would come back and take over, or Frank, or anyone.

"Joe?" Ned's voice was breaking. "What do I do? Someone's got Nancy."

Joe looked around him. There was no one else to handle this. Even when Fenton did come back, there was something about this case that even he couldn't deal with. If Joe didn't keep a clear head and work through this, nobody would.

He shook his head. No, none of the that was true. Of course, his dad would help. There were Carson Drew and Sam Radley, too, not to mention all their friends. Besides that, there would be the FBI and the police over in River Heights as well. He was definitely not alone in this.

"Doesn't your phone have GPS?" Joe asked.

"Yeah." Ned exhaled heavily. "I didn't even think of that."

"Yeah, probably not," Joe replied. "Check where you are on there and I'll have Biff call Burt or Dave to come pick you up."

"I can do it."

"No, I need you to tell me everything. I don't want you to hang up till then," Joe said. That was part of it, but he also wanted to make sure that Ned was all right and had someone to take him home before he'd let him get off the phone.

HBNDHBND

Nancy opened her eyes slowly, trying to figure out where she was and what was going on. She groaned, a nauseated feeling in her stomach. After a moment or two, she realized that she was lying on her side with her wrists and ankles bound and a gag in her mouth. There was a rumbling all around her, and everything was pitch dark. It took a few moments to understand what that meant, but then she decided she must be in the back of a truck, or maybe a tractor-trailer.

From somewhere in the darkness, she heard a movement. There was someone else with her. Was it one of her kidnappers? If it was, they were keeping very quiet. Maybe they were asleep. Then another thought occurred to her. Maybe it was Ned or Frank. That would explain why they were so quiet and still, apart from that one movement that had caught her attention to begin with. The thought of either Ned or Frank being so close comforted her, although she would have rather had them both safe. At least, she would know what had happened to them this way.

This mostly silent journey lasted for hours. Nancy had no idea how long, really, but she knew it had bee a long time, long enough for he to wake up and recover from the effects of the drug her kidnappers had used. After a while, she struggled to get out of her bonds, but they were too tight, and she had no luck with that. From the sound of it, the other prisoner was trying to loosen their bonds as well. That convinced Nancy that it must be either Ned or Frank, but she was discouraged when she realized from the sounds that there was only one other person. Which one was it, and what had happened to the other?

Finally, the truck came to a stop. Nancy heard people talking outside it, their voices muffled. Then, with a roar, the end gate opened and sunlight flooded the interior of the truck. It was the pale light of dawn, but after so many hours in pitch darkness, the light was unbearable. Nancy blinked and turned her face away from it.

"It wasn't my idea," a young man whined, the first voice that Nancy had been able to hear clearly. "I think it's dumb."

"Dumb or not, we'd better just do it," a young woman retorted. "You know as well as I do what thinking leads to around here."

Nancy's eyes were beginning to adjust to the light, and she looked around to try to spot her fellow prisoner. It only took a moment to see Frank, who had struggled into a sitting position. Nancy's heart sank. What had they done with Ned?

"Good. You two sleeping beauties are awake," the same young man from before sneered.

Nancy turned her head to look at him. He and the young woman had climbed up into the back of the truck. A surge of fear passed through her as she recognized them – Terry Shanth and Clarissa Margot.


	4. Chapter 4

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you so much for continuing to read this! Thank you especially to max2013, Cherylann River, BMSH, sm2003495, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter! If I don't have your username there and you left a review, I'm not trying to slight you. The reviews on this story all along have been really weird. First, it was claiming people had already left reviews on chapters and so they couldn't post a new one. I do have an explanation for that – when I started reposting this story, I just deleted the two chapters of the old version that I had up and started replacing them rather than starting from scratch with a whole new story entry. Everyone whom I know about who had trouble had left reviews on the first two chapters of the original version. That problem seems to have cleared up with chapter three, but now we've got a new one: the website is sending me emails about reviews so I know I got those and I could read them in the email, but it won't let me see the reviews on the website. Hopefully it's not also eating reviews and losing them in cyberspace!_

Chapter IV

"We're going to River Heights ourselves, aren't we?" Joe couldn't quite believe that he had to ask this question. It seemed like it should have been so obvious. Frank – and Nancy – were in trouble, and they were in trouble in River Heights. Joe wasn't about to stay home.

Fenton, on the other hand, didn't seem so certain. It had been a long night of talking on the phone to all kinds of different people – Ned, Carson, several different FBI agents and police officers from the River Heights area. They had all needed to hear all the awful details of the case two years ago, as well as the case from seventeen years ago. After not talking about any of that for so long, it was completely draining to have to go over it all over and over. Joe hadn't expected to last through it, and he was surprised that he had done so without any major breakdown. In fact, it seemed that Fenton had had an even worse time of it.

"I'm going," he said finally.

"So am I," Joe insisted. "You're not going without me."

"I wish you wouldn't," Fenton replied.

"I have to," Joe said. "I know you don't think I can handle this kind of stuff. Maybe I can't. But I have to try. It's Frank we're talking about here, and Nancy, too. I can't just sit around while they're in danger."

"I know." The words were almost a sob, and Joe was surprised to see a tear fall down his father's cheek. Fenton didn't cry often, and so it caught Joe off-guard. "I know you can't and won't, Joe, but I can't bear to let you put yourself in danger."

"Dad, I'm no safer here," Joe said.

Fenton nodded reluctantly. "No, I guess not. They're going to –" He stopped himself and cleared his throat. He couldn't give into this right now. After everything Joe had been through, he needed Fenton to be strong. "Joe," he said more steadily now, "Dan Moriare and this mysterious woman and whoever else they have working with them are out for revenge on Carson and me. I know so far they've mostly tried to get it by targeting you and Frank and Nancy, but they might change their tactics any time. Your mom and aunt Gertrude might be next. Who knows? We can't leave them behind unprotected."

"Yeah," Joe admitted, not liking the thought, but it didn't make him like the thought of staying behind while Frank was in danger ay better. "Sam Radley can keep an eye on them."

Fenton ran his fingers through his hair. The Moriare brothers had already cost him so much, had changed his life in more ways than any other criminal ever had. If only Dan knew how well his revenge had already succeeded, maybe he would just leave him alone. But he wouldn't. Fenton knew that. He probably saw it that Fenton, along with Carson, had taken everything from him, and he wouldn't stop until he took everything from them. If Fenton could have gone back somehow and changed the outcome of the original case – even if it had meant that the Moriares would have gotten away entirely – he would have done it.

Joe was watching his dad closely. He and Frank had gotten themselves into every kind of trouble imaginable before this, but Joe honestly couldn't ever remember seeing his father so deeply disturbed before. A chill crept into Joe's heart as an idea leaped out at him – an idea that had tried to make itself known all last night, but even in his darkest moments, Joe had refused to let it take form. Now it did, showing itself in all its twisted ugliness.

"Dad?" Joe asked shakily. "You don't think it will do any good to go look for them, do you? You think they're already –" He couldn't bring himself to say the word.

Fenton covered his eyes with his hand and sobbed, all his superficial calm he had had a moment before fading from him. "I don't want to think it, but they want revenge. They – They don't have any reason to keep them alive."

Joe shook his head, too horrified to feel anything but numb. "No. I don't believe – It can't be. Dad, this is Frank and Nancy. Frank's my brother and my best friend. Nancy's practically like a sister. If they were – If that had happened, I'd know it. Somehow, I'd feel it. I know what it feels like. When – When Iola almost – When I thought she –" He couldn't keep going. He let the tears begin to streak down his face.

Fenton hugged him. "I know. You shouldn't have had to go through any of this, and you only have because of me. But maybe because of that, you can understand why I can't let you come with me. I can't take the chance of losing you or your mom or Gertrude, especially if –"

"Dad." Joe refused to believe his father's fears. "I'd know if that had happened. I'd know if I had lost my best friends."

A lump formed in Fenton's throat as a memory flooded his brain and he held his son even tighter. "There's something I should have told you when all this started two years ago, Joe. I meant to, but I hated to even think about it."

"What is it?" Joe asked.

Fenton breathed in deeply. It was time. It was past time.

 _Seventeen years earlier_

 _Mitchell Johnson yawned and stretched his arms. He'd drunk four cups of coffee already that night, but it didn't seem to be keeping him awake._

 _"I don't see why we couldn't have done this during the day," he grumbled._

 _"Cliff and Dan Moriare know what we look like by now," Fenton reminded him. "If they spot us, they'll just keep away. There's less chance of that happening in the dark."  
The officers' first attempt to arrest the Moriare brothers after learning that they were staying in a cheap hotel in one of the worst parts of the city had failed spectacularly. Evidently, someone had tipped off the Moriares that Lieutenant Hardy and Sergeant Johnson were coming. It hadn't been enough time to get out of the building, and shots had been fired. There had been civilians all around, and that had caused no end of panic. In the confusion, Cliff and Dan had gotten away, and Fenton and Mitch had gotten a severe chewing out from their superior officer. It had taken them almost another three weeks before they could track the criminals down again, and in that time, they had almost despaired of ever being able to solve the case._

 _Their big break had come with an unexpected phone call. It had been from Carson Drew. Although Carson had been helping them on the case, his wife had been killed in a car accident not even a month ago and he had gone home to River Heights. Fenton was surprised when he called, and much more so when he called to talk about the case. Apparently, after the initial shock, he had kept working on the case from afar in an attempt to keep himself distracted. He had been investigating Joy Moriare, Cliff's wife, and had turned up an apartment in a rundown building in an infamous part of the city that was rented in her mother's maiden name, Alaina Smyghtly. It could have been a coincidence and so it wasn't enough to get a search warrant, but it was certainly good enough to run down. That was why Fenton and Mitch were sitting out in an unmarked car, staking the apartment building out and hoping to get a glimpse of Cliff, Dan, or Joy._

 _Mitch yawned again. "Something's better happen quick or I'm going to fall asleep. I don't think I can drink any more coffee."_

 _"Didn't you sleep last night?" Fenton asked._

 _"Well – some," Mitch said._

 _"Don't tell me," Fenton guessed. "You're rewatching the entire series of_ Dragnet _again, and you just couldn't stop without watching 'one more episode'. Right?"_

 _"Almost," Mitch admitted. "It was_ Perry Mason _, actually."_

 _"You'd think you'd have enough of detective work, considering that's your actual job." Fenton shook his head, hiding a grin in the darkness. Mitch had to be familiar with just about every detective in books, movies or television there ever was._

 _"Never," Mitch replied. "My dad always told me to get a job I loved, so that's what I did. Besides, when worse comes to worse, I can always yell at the TV that that's not how you're supposed to do it._ Dragnet _'s not too bad for that, though, actually. You know, there are still a few episodes of that that I don't have recorded. I wish they'd just put all these old series on VHS."_

 _"Then you'd just have to buy them all over again when DVD picks up steam and leaves VHS in the dust," Fenton told him._

 _"You really think that's gonna happen?" Mitch asked. "I can see how DVD's better in some ways, but –"_

 _"There they are," Fenton interrupted him, pointing out two men coming out of an apartment._

 _The officers sat tensely in their car, watching the men to make absolutely sure. A few moments later, they passed under a streetlight, and both Fenton and Mitch could see unmistakably that they were Cliff and Dan._

 _"Let's go get 'em." Mitch reached for the door handle._

 _Fenton put his hand on his arm to stop him. "Wait. There are too many people around here if they decide to try shooting their way out of it again. Let's wait for them outside the door of the apartment. When they're trying to go back in, we can catch them off-guard."_

 _"They might not come back for hours," Mitch protested._

 _"It's our best bet," Fenton insisted. "It'll also give us time for backup to get here."_

 _Reluctantly, Mitch agreed, and Fenton tried to put in a call for backup. The radio merely crackled with static._

 _"They would give us a car with a bad radio," Mitch said. "I guess we'll have to call with an actual phone. I'll do it. You go get in place by the door, in case they're just taking a walk around the block."_

 _The officers split ways, Fenton hiding himself amongst some ragged shrubbery to the right of the door and Mitch disappearing into a building across the street. Fenton had hardly settled into place when he felt someone grab him from behind. He gave a loud shout before he began struggling, but his attacker had the advantage of surprise and a better position. The attacker kicked and hit him so that before he knew it, he was on the ground, every bit of him bruised and aching. He looked up to see Dan Moriare leveling his own gun at him._

 _Fenton braced himself for the shot, gathering just enough presence of mind to say a silent prayer. Dan wavered a little as he held the gun, hesitating before he would pull the trigger. A little flame of hope ignited in Fenton's heart. There was no telling why Dan was hesitating, but maybe it would give Mitch enough time to come in response to Fenton's shout. If Mitch had even heard him shout, he reminded himself._

 _He didn't have long to wait. A few seconds later, he heard Mitch demand, "Drop the gun, Moriare."_

 _Fenton and Dan both turned to see him training his gun at Dan. Then Fenton saw something else as well._

 _"Mitch! Look out!" he shouted._

 _Dan kicked him in the jaw just as Cliff sprang at Mitch from behind. The murderer and the detective grappled with each other, each trying to get hold of Mitch's gun. Fenton made a move to help his partner, but Dan held the gun closer in front of him, though still out of reach._

 _"Don't try anything," he warned him._

 _Mitch and Cliff's wrestling match seemed to last forever, both of them straining with all their might, but neither of them coming any closer to defeating their opponent. Their only movement was to step backwards and forwards and sideways as they tried to keep their balance. After a few long moments, Mitch ended up with his back against the wall of the apartment building. Cliff saw his advantage and pressed his elbow into Mitch's throat. Although Mitch continued to try to hold his own, his oxygen was cut off and he was finally forced to relax his grip on the gun._

 _At once, Cliff yanked it out of his hand, letting go of Mitch as he did so. Mitch fell forward onto his hands and knees. He coughed and wheezed as he tried to get his breath. Cliff glared down at him with hatred burning in his eyes. All at once, he reached down, grabbed Mitch by the back of the collar, and pressed the muzzle of the gun to his temple. Fenton cried out and tried to jumped forward, but Dan held him back. Growling a curse, Cliff pulled the trigger._


	5. Chapter 5

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you so much for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, BMSH, max2013, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter, as well as to anyone who tried to review and all trace of your review was eaten in cyberspace. Hopefully, this problem with reviews will be fixed soon!_

Chapter V

Joe was shocked by his father's story, but he kept silent. It all made sense now. He still didn't think his father had been right not to tell his sons exactly what had happened, but he could see why now.

"Dad, I didn't realize it was like that," Joe said after a few minutes of processing the story. "You should have told us. We could have helped you somehow."

Fenton sighed. "I didn't know if you'd understand. You and Frank aren't cops, and you've never been in a situation like that before."

"Well – not quite," Joe admitted, shivering to think about it. "I do understand, though, and I think Frank would, too. We've seen a lot."

"It doesn't matter what you've seen so much," Fenton countered. "You wouldn't do something like that."

Joe closed his eyes, thinking over the end of the story. All of that, starting with Mitch Johnson's murder, would be hard to live with. It would be harder than even anything he had had to deal with. Yet somehow, he father had lived with it for seventeen years, barely talking about it. He hadn't completely recovered even now, but still those seventeen years hadn't been all bad. In fact, there had been a lot more good in them than bad. Maybe wounds like that never really healed, but maybe they wouldn't always be at the forefront of thought. This realization had given him hope and he felt stronger than he had in the last two years.

"Maybe I wouldn't," he said. "Maybe I would. I don't know. I do know that you're not to blame for it."

Fenton scoffed. "Did you even listen to what I said?"

"Yeah," Joe replied. "That's why how I know you're not to blame. Besides, you didn't get fired from the NYPD or - yeah, so obviously they didn't think you'd done anything wrong."

Fenton shook his head. "I don't really care what they thought. I know what happened and I know what I did. That's all that matters to me."

There didn't seem to be any point arguing over this, especially since Joe would have to argue against himself as much as his dad. He still felt the same way over what had happened with Iola. Fortunately, that had had far less tragic results, but he still understood what it was like.

"Dad, whatever we've done or whatever's happened in the past," Joe began, but he was struck by how weird this would sound coming from him. "I know I'm probably the worst person in the world to be saying this, but we have to think this through and not let our emotions run away with us."

"After what happened with Mitch, I don't –" Fenton trailed off. The thought was too hard to express in words.

"Maybe," Joe admitted, feeling like he was stabbing himself to even admit the possibility, "but for now we need to believe that that hasn't happened yet. We can't help Frank and Nancy otherwise."

He stopped and tried to think through this calmly. That, he realized after a few moments, wasn't possible at the moment, or any other time in a case like this, probably. He needed to think logically, at least. Fenton was right about one thing – their enemies might pick Laura or Aunt Gertrude for their next target, and so they couldn't be left alone. Joe couldn't protect them by himself and being near him might be an added danger. Either way, there really should be someone watching them every moment, and one person by himself couldn't do that. Moreover again, whoever was keeping an eye on them needed to be as little distracted as possible, and Joe certainly did not fit that description, especially not now. Fenton wasn't any help – he was just as upset and not thinking straight as Joe. They needed to find someone who could help them think through this. Sam Radley was the obvious choice.

HBNDHBND

Ned felt limp and helpless as he sat in his parents' living room. Talking to Joe had helped much less than Joe probably meant it to. It looked like the Hardys had already realized that the Moriare bunch were behind this. It was ironic, Ned thought, that he and Frank and Nancy had been talking about that just before this had happened. Yet, at the same time, it was more horrible than Ned could really take in. These people were among the worst criminals Nancy had ever gone up against. The danger was very real if they were holding her and Frank.

Burt Eddleton had been the one to come and find Ned the night before. He had brought his girlfriend, George Fayne, who was also one of Nancy's best friends, with him, and the two of them were still at the Nickerson house after spending the whole night talking to the police and FBI. Right now, Burt was sprawled out on the couch asleep, and Ned had no idea where George was.

"Ned, how are you doing?"

He felt a hand placed on his shoulder, and he looked up and tried to fake a smile. He hadn't heard his mom come in the room.

"I've done better," he admitted.

His mother leaned down to give him a hug. "I wish there was something I could say or do. It'll be all right. We just have to believe that."

Ned took in a deep breath. "You're right, Mom, but it doesn't help very much." He paused and then went on, "I was there, Mom. I couldn't do anything, and I didn't even see anything. I feel so useless."

"That's not your fault," his mother assured him. "Things like this happen so fast, there's not really anything anybody can do in the moment, unless they're very lucky."

"Yeah." It wasn't particularly comforting, but Ned knew his mother was trying. After all, what could you say to someone at a time like this?

"Hey! Burt, wake up! Ned, listen!" George came dashing into the living room, laptop in tow, and seemed excited about something. It was jarring to Ned to see anyone look even somewhat happy right now.

Burt stirred and opened his eyes groggily. After getting no sleep the night before, it was no wonder that he was exhausted. He yawned. "What? What's going on?"

"I think I've got something," George said, setting her laptop on the coffee table in front where Ned was sitting. She sat down on the floor and pointed to a set of coordinates on the screen. "Look at this."

"What does that mean?" Burt asked after he had crawled off the coach and sat down next to her.

George rolled her eyes. "It's latitude and longitude."

"No, I know that," Burt replied. "I meant, what's at that position."

"Nancy's cell phone," George told him.

"How did you find that out?" Ned asked.

"Smartphones always have GPS," George explained. "It's actually pretty easy to set it up so you can track somebody with their phone. Of course, that's why Nancy keeps hers off most of the time. I've been trying to turn figure out how to turn it on from long distance, and as you can see, I've got it now."

"Well, where's she at, then?" Burt asked.

"That's the thing." George frowned. "These coordinates aren't exactly close to River Heights."

"Come on, George, stop hinting around and just tell us," Ned insisted.

"Okay," George said. "According to these coordinates, Nancy's phone is in Nebraska. A little town on I-80 called Whitevale, to be exact."

Ned put a hand to his forehead and groaned. "Nebraska? That means they're taking Nancy and Frank out of the area."

"Well, not necessarily," George replied, trying to sound hopeful. "It just means they took Nancy's phone out of the area. But, yeah, you're probably right, but most likely this means they went somewhere that you get to by taking I-80. That's better than nothing."

"Oh, sure," Burt agreed with a touch of sarcasm. "It just gives us a couple thousand miles to search before we could even get started on searching all the places that you turn off I-80 after this Whitevale place."

George's face fell. In her excitement about her discovery, she hadn't thought of how little it narrowed things down. "I guess you're right."

"We'll still give this information to the police and FBI," Ned said. "I mean, it does tell us something, and every little bit helps. I just wish we could solve the whole mystery right now."

HBNDHBND

Frank read every road sign carefully, trying to learn where they were going. They were somewhere in the mountains – the Rockies rather than the Appalachians – he could tell that much from the landscape. That left a large area that they could be in. Several entire states, in fact. They were on some little backroads and the only signs they came across were the occasional green sign giving the name of a road or warning signs about sharp corners and steep grades. So far, he hadn't spotted a single one with the name of the state or even the name of a town on it.

He glanced through the rear window at the car following them. After they moved them out of the truck, one of their captors had taken it, probably to get it as far away as possible when they dumped it. The other four, including Terry and Clarissa, had divided between two small cars and put Frank in one and Nancy in the other. Then they had taken to the backroads. They probably assumed they wouldn't meet anyone. So far, they were right about that.

Frank was in the back seat, Clarissa was driving, and the other captor whom Frank had never seen before was sitting in the front passenger seat. He kept turning around to check on Frank and make sure he hadn't gotten himself untied. Even if Frank had, they had enabled the child safety lock on the back doors, and so he couldn't have gotten out without making enough commotion that they would have noticed.

"You would have saved yourself some bother if you would have just taken one car," Frank said after a while, mostly just to annoy Clarissa and the man by critiquing their plan. "I don't think Nancy and I would have had any more chance of escaping if we were in the same car."

"Probably not," Clarissa admitted, unperturbed. "That wasn't really the reason _she_ insisted that we use two cars."

"Then what was?" Frank asked.

"Terry, actually," Clarissa said. "He's been a problem all along. The only useful thing he's done is to recruit me."

"How did he recruit you?" Frank thought he might as well take advantage of Clarissa's talkative mood.

"It wasn't so hard to get me on board with any plan that would rid me of my stepfather, Simeon," Clarissa explained. "The rest of it – eh. It doesn't matter so much to me. But I owe _her_ a debt for getting rid of that loser for me. So, I stick with her."

"Even when it means hurting people who have never done you any harm?" Frank shook his head in disgust. No matter how many criminals he had interacted with, he didn't think he'd every understand them.

"You mean like you and Nancy?" Clarissa asked in a mockingly sweet tone. "You've never done me any good either. And you could have, you know. Your brother did. At least, he tried to help me out."

"He doesn't seem to have gotten any better of a reward," Frank said.

"If you're talking about Terry almost killing him twice, that's Terry," Clarissa replied. "Like I said, he's been a problem all the way around. He hates you and Joe, you know. I mean, really hates you two. That's why we took separate cars, so you wouldn't be in the same car as him. _She_ wants you alive, and she didn't trust Terry to let you stay that way."

Frank shivered. He wondered once again, as he had done so many times in the last two years, why Terry Shanth had such a vendetta against them, but there was something that Clarissa had said several times that caught his attention more than that. "Who's she? This woman you keep talking about?"

Clarissa looked at him in the rearview mirror. "You've met her before. She called herself Helena Markovich then. She also called herself Lynn Morgan once. I honestly can't say what her real name is. If you figure it out, tell me."


	6. Chapter 6

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you so much for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, BMSH, and max2013 for your reviews on Chapter 5, and Guest for your review on Chapter 4. Speaking of reviews, the review bug has been fixed so I can see all reviews now!_

Chapter VI

Sam Radley listened patiently as Joe talked. He already knew what had happened from talking to Fenton and the police, and so he didn't ask Joe to repeat what few details they knew. He knew that Joe had been having a hard time since that other case and had been keeping almost entirely to himself since then, and so he was a little surprised when Joe had come to his house and asked to talk to him. He decided the best thing to do was to just listen to whatever Joe had to say.

Joe was grateful that Sam seemed to understand. Ever since Fenton had taken Sam on as an operative eight years ago, he had been like an uncle to Frank and Joe. Now, Joe was glad to have him to listen as he rambled on about all his fears and frustrations about the case. He surprised himself at how much he said, especially after two years of withdrawing even from his closest friends, but it was such a relief to get it all out that he didn't stop himself.

"Did Dad ever tell you about why he left the NYPD?" Joe asked finally, after he had finished repeating the story his father had told him. The thought suddenly occurred to him that maybe he shouldn't have told that much at least, especially since even Frank still didn't know the details.

"Not very much," Sam replied. "Just that his partner whom he'd been close to had been killed. But don't worry about it. I won't tell him that you told me."

"What do we do?" Joe asked with a note of despair in his voice.

"What we'd do in any kidnapping case." Sam felt that being matter-of-fact and business-like was the best way to calm the situation. "We need to find out what the police and FBI are working on. They're in the best position to do most of the work. They have access to the most information and resources, and besides that, they're actually there. It would be a waste of our time to work at this from the same angle they're coming from, because we won't find anything that they don't know. Once we know what they're doing, we can focus on the problem from a different angle. We've got a lot of different leads we could follow up. Dan Moriare has been pretty thoroughly investigated and so has Terry Shanth. No point trying to turn up anything new on them, at least right now. Our mysterious woman suspect, we don't know a whole lot about. I think the best suspect to try to track down would be Clarissa Margot. She's been the least investigated of all of them. There's also that character that Nancy ran into – that Robin Hood guy, Robert Worthing. I know Nancy doesn't think he's involved, but whether he is or not, he might know something. He'll be easy to find, too, since he's still in jail. Then also there's Evan Donahue, the guy that got framed for the murders two years ago. He could know more than he's letting on, too."

"Okay," Joe agreed. "That's three people to investigate, but it doesn't get us very far. I doubt we'll find out anything about Clarissa that the FBI doesn't know about, and the other two could easily be dead ends."

"At least we'd know for sure then," Sam replied. "Now, with Clarissa, there's already been quite a bit of investigation into her, although I suspect that if they FBI slacked anywhere, it would be on her. We need to find out everything we can about her and Evan. You'll be able to find out quite a bit from your former classmates. They were both into theater, if I remember right. Talk to the other kids who were in theater at the same time as them. You're bound to turn up something."

"Evan moved away after he graduated," Joe pointed out. "I don't know where he is now."  
"I'll look into that," Sam offered. "You start learning everything you can from the kids who are still around. There's no need to be particularly subtle, even. Sometimes that works better, but sometimes people talk more when they know you're investigating. I would say you wouldn't believe how much some people have told me after they found out I'm a detective, but you have enough experience yourself to know how that is."

Joe almost chuckled. "You're right about that. What about going to River Heights, though? Dad is definitely intending to go."

"Let him," Sam said. "He'll have better peace of mind if you stay behind, and there's really nothing you can do there. Maybe talk to Robert Worthing, but he's probably in a different part of the state anyway."

"Yeah, I guess." Joe faltered. "I just want to be there."

"I know," Sam replied. "We need to do everything we can to solve this case as fast as we can. You'd be wasting your efforts if you tried to help out there, and that might not be a luxury we can afford."

Joe didn't make any reply to that. Sam was right, no matter how much Joe wished he wasn't. Despite that, Joe appreciated his calm and objective approach to all of this. After having his emotions running high for the last sixteen hours, it was nice to start thinking like a detective again. He just needed to stay calm and he could do this.

"I don't remember who all was in theater back then," he said. "Iola and Callie were both in on it. I'll talk to them first and try to get some names."

"Good." Sam nodded in approval. "And I'll get to work tracking down Evan Donahue. We'll check back in tonight, okay?"

"Sounds good," Joe agreed. "Thanks, Sam."

"Don't mention it," Sam replied.

Joe didn't want to waste any time, so he rushed out of Sam's house and headed for the Mortons' farm. By some stroke of luck, he found not only Iola and her brother, Chet, there, but also Callie, who was Iola's best friend. All three were somber, and from Callie's reddened eyes, it was not hard to guess that she had been crying.

"I'm glad you're here, Joe," Callie said as she surprised him by greeting him with a hug. "I – Have you found anything out?"

"Not yet," Joe admitted. "Dad's going to go to River Heights and help with the investigation there. Sam Radley and I are going to try to find out what we can from here. We need to find out everything we can about Clarissa, and Evan Donahue, too. Sam thinks he might know something that he's not telling."

"Evan's not too hard," Iola said. "He's always pretty much been an open book."

"Do you know how to get in touch with him?" Joe asked.

"Yeah. I even still have his phone number, if he hasn't changed it," Iola replied. "The one that's really going to be a problem is Clarissa. She tried to make friends, but no one ever hung out with her."

"I know," Joe said, "but anything at all would be a help. I need to talk to as many people who were in theater as I can and ask them if they remember anything at all. Even if it's just what her favorite kind of soda was. Who knows? There was another case that knowing that about one of the suspects came in handy."

"Well, I don't know anything like that about her," Chet replied, trying to lighten the mood a little, "but I can still do a pretty good imitation of her acting, if you think that would help."

"What about – I don't know if this would help," Callie said. It was obvious from her voice that she was trying to sound strong. "Clarissa was in art class with me when she first came to Bayport. That was before she turned to acting, and she thought she'd be a great artist someday. She gave me one of her paintings that she had gotten framed."

"Do you still have it?" Joe asked, thinking he might as well follow up on this.

"No," Callie told him, "but I know where it is. It wasn't a bad painting, actually, so I gave it to the senior citizen home. They like hanging up paintings and photography there, and I didn't think Clarissa would ever see it. I didn't want her to know that I'd given it away, since that was before all of this."

Joe considered this for a moment. He doubted he could learn much from the painting, but some hunch told him to check it out anyway. "Come on. Let's go see if they still have it."

HBNDHBND

Nancy's arrangement in the car was pretty much the same as Frank's. She was in the back with her hands tied and the child safety locks on the door. The kidnapper whom she didn't know was driving, and Terry was in the front passenger seat, looking back at her from time to time. The biggest difference was that Terry and the other man talked to each other practically the entire time. At least, Terry talked and the other man grunted in agreement now and then. Most of the conversation was sickening as Terry went on and on about what he would do to the Hardys when he got his hands on them.

"Frank, now, it fits that he's going to be the first to go," he was saying. "Being the older one. I would have rather had Detective Hardy watch his son – both his sons – die. I could record it. Yes, that's an idea. Of course, I'll have to make sure it's well-worth watching."

Nancy shuddered at the horrid image. "Would you stop?" she pleaded finally.

"Because it's your friends I'm talking about?" Terry sneered. "You wouldn't be so protective of them if you knew what they'd done to me. It makes me sick to think about it. Them with their happy, little family, and what did they leave me? Nothing."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Nancy said.

"You'll find out soon enough," Terry replied. "And then we'll see what you think of your friends. I want Frank to see your face when you find out the truth. One last little bit of revenge before I finish it."

Nancy looked out the window. The beautiful trees and flashes of mountain vistas made a stark contrast to the ugly conversation taking place. Terry was obviously crazy, and he was certainly dangerous. It would be best not to antagonize him. Nonetheless, Nancy couldn't help but wonder what had caused him to become like this. She recalled that his mother had been murdered two years ago. The Hardys had thought that Terry had done it himself. Whether he did or not, maybe he was somehow blaming the Hardys for it. Maybe he had convinced himself that they had forced him to it with their investigation.

"Don't you have anything more to say?" Terry asked, irritated by Nancy's silence. "It figures. You're already doubting them. You already know what I'm saying is true."

"I don't even know what you're saying," Nancy replied. "All I know is that Frank and Joe and their family have nothing to hide, and they've done nothing that would ever make me doubt them."

"So much unshakable faith in them." Terry shook his head, disgust showing on his face. "You'll see the truth."

"She'll see it pretty soon," the driver spoke up. "We're here."

Both cars stopped in front of a building made of logs. Frank and Nancy were forced out. Terry, infuriated by all the things he had thought and said during the drive, took two strides toward Frank, but Clarissa stepped in between them.

"Don't you dare," she warned Terry. " _She'll_ have both our heads if we don't do this exactly like she said."

Frank and Nancy cast each other concerned glances. They didn't like any of this. The driver from Nancy's car pushed her forward.

"Get in the house," he growled.

Nancy hesitated. There was something ominous about that door, and she had a feeling that if she went through it, she wouldn't be coming back out. The man gave her another rough shove that almost sent her sprawling.

Then the door opened and a woman came out. She wasn't just any woman, though. There was something about her that seemed to cast a spell over everyone. Although she looked different now, Nancy and Frank both immediately recognized her. No one else could have such a strange and overpowering effect.

"Helena Markovich," Frank said.

The woman smiled. "Frank and Nancy. I'm very glad to see you both. You did realize that Helena Markovich and Lynn Morgan were the same person."

Frank nodded.

"Good," the woman said. "If you hadn't been able to figure that much out, I'd feel like I was wasting my time on you." She glanced at Nancy. "Is something wrong with you? You're talking much less than ordinary."

Nancy was still deeply disturbed by the conversation on the way there and was in no mood to try to engage in a battle of wits with this woman. "What do you want from us, Lynn?" she asked. "Or should I say, Evangeline Moriare?"


	7. Chapter 7

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to BMSH, max2013, and Cherylann Rivers for your reviews on Chapter 6 and to EvergreenDreamweaver for your review on Chapter 5._

Chapter VII

"Callie! How nice to see you again," the woman at the front desk of the senior center greeted Callie enthusiastically as she came through the door with Joe, Iola, and Chet. It was no wonder – Callie had been volunteering at the center for years.

"Hello, Mrs. Winners," Callie greeted her in return, although her smile was forced. She introduced her friends and then added, "We wanted to ask you something a little unusual. I donated a painting three or four years ago. Is there any chance you still have it?"

"Oh, I'm certain we do," Mrs. Winners replied. "We never seem to get rid of anything around here. The question is whether we have it hanging up somewhere or in storage. We like to switch the paintings out from time to time, so we have quite a few in the basement."

"It was a mountain landscape," Callie told her. "It showed a lake tucked up in between the mountains. I don't really remember anything else about it, to tell the truth."

Mrs. Winners rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "I don't believe we have anything like that hanging up. It must be in the basement. If it's down there, it's not going to be easy to find it."

"Can we look?" Joe spoke up. "We'll put everything back where we find it. It's very important that we find this painting."

"May I ask why?" Mrs. Winners gave the group a curious look.

"Like Callie said, my name is Joe Hardy," Joe told her. "You may have heard about how my brother and I solve mysteries. This painting might be a clue in a very important one."

"Oh, Hardy." Mrs. Winners slapped her forehead. "I should have recognized the name. Of course, I've read all about you and your brother in the paper numerous times. They always call you the Hardy Boys. I guess I just didn't recognize you without your brother. After all, you're not really the Hardy Boys with just one of you."

Throughout this rambling speech, Joe tried with difficulty not to let what he was feeling show on his face. He'd had people say things like this to him before. It usually annoyed him to no end that people didn't seem to understand that he was his own person and his identity didn't depend on whether he had Frank around or not. Now, though, with everything that was happening, he realized that he would lose a part of himself if he lost Frank. He set his jaw. He had to do everything it would take to make sure that didn't happen.

"Could we go look, then?" Iola recognized the strain Joe was under and stepped in to try to alleviate the situation.

"Oh, of course," Mrs. Winners replied. "I'm always glad to help with an investigation. Come on. I'll show you to the basement. I'll even help you look, if you like."  
Callie shot a glance at Joe. Given the woman's rather insensitive though innocent remarks, she decided to say, "Thank you very much, Mrs. Winners, but we can probably handle it. Like you said, it might take a while, and we wouldn't want to take you away from your work for so long."

"I suppose you're right," Mrs. Winners said ruefully. "Oh, well. Tell me if you find what you're looking for."

She led them down a steep, narrow flight of stairs. A door at the bottom opened into a small basement that was so full of boxes and old trunks that it was difficult to even walk around. Joe and his friends thanked Mrs. Winners and then set to work, opening whatever boxes and trunks were large enough to hold a painting and looking behind and beneath everything.

The search took a long time. If their errand hadn't been so urgent, it could have easily taken much longer, as there were many fascinating objects packed away and they could have spent hours looking at and talking about them. As it was, the only thing on any of their minds was to find the painting and examine it for any clue that might be helpful.

By the time they had been searching for an hour, they were all beginning to be frustrated at their lack of success so far. There were still a lot of boxes that they hadn't checked yet, so the painting could have easily still been there, but the feeling that they were getting nowhere was stifling. Callie felt tears forming in her eyes and tried to brush them away, but that only made more come.

Iola was standing next to her and noticed. She put a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder. "Hey, do you want to take a break? Being stuck down in this basement, inhaling all this dust, can't be good for us."

Callie wiped another tear from her cheek. "No. I don't want to take a break. I don't want to waste any more time. I already feel like this is a waste of time."

Chet, whose patience never lasted long, hastened to put in a word of agreement. "I think she's right. What could we learn from this painting anyway?"

With a sigh, Joe let the lid of the trunk he was examining close. "I don't know. It's just a feeling - a hunch, I guess. It's probably a wild goose chase. Look, if you guys want to go, you can. I wouldn't blame you, but I'm going to stay. I just feel like that painting's going to tell us something important."

Chet sighed himself. "Well, I guess we might as well keep looking then. We're not going to leave you alone."

The group wearily continued their search. For nearly another hour, they found nothing. Then Iola discovered a stack of wrapped paintings behind a shelf. With Callie's help, she began carefully unwrapping them to check whether they were the ones they were looking for and then wrapping them back up. When they were midway through the stack, Iola gave a little cry of delight.

"Is this it?" she asked, holding the painting out to Callie.

"I think so!" Callie replied. "At least, it certainly looks like how I remember it."

Joe and Chet crowded over to look over their shoulders. The painting showed, as Callie had said, a glistening blue lake set far beneath where the viewer would have been standing with tree-covered mountains and sheer cliffs of stone surrounding it.

"I don't think that's the one," Chet said. "That's way too good for Clarissa to have painted it."

"If she did, she didn't sign it," Joe observed. "Maybe there's something in the frame that would tell us."

Callie carefully took the back of the frame out. The back of the painting was completely blank except for one corner where someone had written in tiny letters, "Clarissa Holdridge, Sackville, CO."

"That's weird." Chet wrinkled his eyebrow. "It's the right first name, but the wrong last name."

Joe thought for a moment. "Simeon Margot was Clarissa's stepdad, wasn't he? He must have adopted her and she legally changed her name. Holdridge was probably her real dad's last name."

"That would make sense." Iola nodded. "But what good does that do us? It doesn't tell us where she is."

"Maybe not," Joe said. "I wonder what 'Sackville, Colorado' means. She moved here when she must have been a freshman or a sophomore. That could be where she's from originally."

"Or maybe just where she painted this," Callie suggested.

Before anyone else could offer any ideas, Joe's phone rang. A glance at the screen told him that it was George Fayne calling. He hesitated apprehensively, wondering whether George was calling to ask questions or to give some ideas. Knowing her, it could be either, and though he'd be more than happy to get some ideas, he was in no mood to answer questions.

"Hi, George." He finally answered the phone.

"I was getting a little worried you weren't going to answer," George replied good-naturedly. "How are you doing?"

"I'll do better once we solve this case," Joe told her, wanting to gloss over the details as much as possible. "You sound like you're holding up."

"I'm doing better than that," George said. "I've found a clue. See, I tracked the GPS on Nancy's phone. It's in some little town called Whitevale, Nebraska. At least, it was. The FBI got right on it and sent some of their people in Nebraska to get it. They found the phone in a trashcan, but so far haven't found a trace of Nancy or Frank there, other than the phone, obviously."

"Nebraska." Joe's glance fell on the painting that Callie was still holding, and an idea began to form in his mind. On impulse, he asked, "That's not on the interstate, by any chance, is it?"

"How did you know?" George asked. "It is, actually. Right on I-80."

"That's the one you take to get to Colorado from there," he said.

"Yeah. I guess so." George replied. "Do you have a map of all the interstates memorized or something?"

"No, it's just an idea. A long shot, probably." Joe could feel excitement surging up in him. "I need to check on a few things. Call me back or have Ned or somebody call me at eight tonight."

"What is it?" Iola asked, taking note of Joe's changed expression.

"I have a feeling we've just got our first big break."

HBNDHBND

The woman looked startled when Nancy called her Evangeline Moriare, but she smoothed over her surprise quickly and smiled. "I didn't expect you to have figured that out."

"Evangeline Moriare?" Frank looked questioningly from Nancy to the woman. He had never heard this name before and felt that he must have missed something important.

"Cliff and Dan's younger sister," Nancy explained. "From what my dad told me about her, even from when she must have been only twelve or so, I started to think that she was most likely the leader of this plot. I knew Lynn Morgan, a.k.a. Helena Markovich, was even more central to the plot than Dan Moriare was after the visit I was paid in the hotel room. It all clicked then. After all, what woman would be more interested in this plot than Evangeline Moriare herself?"

"I didn't realize there was a sister, too," Frank said, listening in bewilderment to Nancy's line of reasoning.

"No doubt," Evangeline replied. "Your father wouldn't have told you about me. Perhaps he couldn't. As Nancy said, I was only twelve and your father destroyed my family. He's not the sort to boast about something like that."

"Your brothers destroyed your family themselves," Frank protested. "It was their own choice to go on a murder spree. It was my father's duty to stop them, and if he hadn't, someone else would have."

"Perhaps, but he did a good deal more than his 'duty.'" Evangeline could not disguise a disgusted sneer.

"More than his duty?" Terry spat out in a rage. "I'll say he did more than that. If he would have just stopped them, that would have been one thing, but what he did do –"

These comments confused Frank completely. He had no idea what Evangeline and Terry could possibly mean in seemingly accusing Fenton of some kind of crime. He cast a baffled look at Nancy, who was staring at the ground uncomfortably. Once again, he had a feeling that she knew more about all of this than he did.

"Frank," Nancy said, looking up at him. "Please, these people are crazy. Don't pay any attention to what they say. They'll only tell part of the story."

"Only part of the story?" Terry fairly screeched. "I'll tell him the only part of the story that matters. Cliff Moriare was my father, and Fenton Hardy murdered him!"


	8. Chapter 8

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you again for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to BMSH, max2013, and Cherylann Rivers for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter VIII

Frank couldn't believe what he had just heard. All this time, he had been assuming that Dan Moriare had gathered up some of his cronies to take revenge on Fenton and Carson for capturing him. That Dan and Cliff had had a sister – and that Cliff had had a son – and that that son was Terry Shanth was mind blowing enough. But that Fenton had murdered Cliff Moriare? No, that simply couldn't be.

"It's not true," he said simply. He couldn't think anything else. "It's impossible. It can't be."

"It's true," Terry hissed, coming closer to Frank so that his face was only inches from Frank's. "That's why your father never told you. That's why he had to leave the police force and go to a little, backwater town like Bayport. Fenton Hardy, the great detective. You've never thought it was strange?"

Frank shook his head. He felt as if he had suddenly fallen through a portal into another universe, that everything he'd ever known was false. But, no. He strained against it. It wasn't true. Whatever had happened, it wasn't that.

"Dad couldn't have," he said finally.

"Then what did happen?" Terry demanded. "You know my father was killed. Who killed him if it wasn't your father?"

"I – don't know." Frank faltered. He glanced at Nancy for help, but her stricken look chilled him. Surely, Nancy knew it wasn't true.

Terry followed Frank's gaze. He stepped over to Nancy now. "You know what happened. You know all about this. I can see it in your eyes."

"I know about it," Nancy confirmed in a low voice.

"Nancy, why didn't you tell me?" Frank asked. The world was so upside down by now that he wondered how he could still stand upright.

"I thought it would be better if your dad told you himself," Nancy said.

"Then – it's true?" The word came out in a voiceless breath. Frank couldn't believe he was saying it, but at that moment, it seemed like anything might be true.

"No," Nancy told him. "Your father didn't murder anyone. It was self-defense."

"How would you know?" Terry demanded.

"My dad told me," Nancy replied evenly. "He told me exactly what happened. It was self-defense."

"Self-defense," Terry snorted. "My father wasn't even armed. He didn't even have a gun. Do you call that self-defense? You're a liar."

"Nancy, what happened?" Frank pleaded.

Nancy looked down at the ground. What _had_ happened wasn't as bad as Terry said – exactly – but it was still a terrible thing to have to tell. For as curious as she had been about it at the time, she had almost wished her father hadn't told her after all. Still, now that Terry had leveled his accusations, Frank had to know the truth.

"Go ahead and tell him, Nancy," Evangeline said. "Terry won't interrupt, and I believe you will tell the truth, whatever Terry says."

"It's a long story," Nancy said softly. "I think it would be better if you let us sit down."

"Of course," Evangeline agreed. "Clarissa, take them to the room we have prepared for them. I'm sure they'd rather talk this out in private."

Clarissa and the two men led Frank and Nancy into the building and down to the basement. There were no windows and no overhead lights other than a single bulb in the center of the ceiling. They untied the prisoners' hands and left them, closing and locking the door behind them.

The room was a decent size, not overly spacious but not crowded, either. There were cots set up on either side of the room, but otherwise there was no furniture in the room. Frank sat down on one cot and rubbed his sore wrists. He was still feeling shaky over the terrible revelations and accusations. At one and the same time, he wanted to hear the whole story but he also didn't want to hear it. Nancy sat down next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Frank turned to look at her. "What happened, Nancy? I need to know."

"Yeah," Nancy said. "I don't know how much your dad told you, but the main thing is that last night."

 _Seventeen years earlier_

 _Fenton looked away as the shot fired. A wave of stupefaction overwhelmed him, and he went numb with shock. It wasn't even grief – not yet, not in the first few moments. That came seconds later._

 _"You didn't need to do that, Cliff," Dan said. His voice was strained. "The whole street must have heard it – and killing a cop. They don't let you get away with that one."_

 _"Then shut up and let's get out of here," Cliff grumbled._

 _"What do we do with this one?" Dan asked._

 _"Kill him," Cliff said._

 _"We could use him as a hostage," Dan suggested._

 _"We don't need a hostage," Cliff said. "Just kill him and get it over with."_

 _He hurried away back toward the apartment. Fenton summoned enough strength to look up as he went. Dan was standing over Fenton, still holding the officer's own gun on him. Fenton looked over his shoulder at Mitch. His friend was lying in a rapidly widening pool of red, but mercifully Fenton couldn't make out the scene any better than that from his position. He bowed his head. Just now, he didn't really care if Dan pulled the trigger._

 _But Dan didn't pull it. He stood a few minutes more as he was. Finally, Fenton looked up to see his face. Sweat stood out on Dan's forehead, and his hand shook. Then, suddenly, he dropped the gun so that it fell to the sidewalk right in front of Fenton._

 _"I don't care what you do to either of us," he said. "I never killed anybody before, and that's the truth. It's Cliff. It's all Cliff. Get out of here before he comes back and kills you, too."_

 _Fenton was in too much shock to even process what Dan had said for a moment. The criminal seized his opportunity and ran. For several seconds, Fenton stared dumbly after him. Then he looked down at the gun lying on the sidewalk in front of him. Then he looked over his shoulder again at Mitch's body. At once, he grabbed the gun and struggled to his feet. He started to run towards the apartment, but he had only covered half the distance when Cliff came out. The murderer froze when he saw Fenton holding a gun on him._

 _Fenton raised the gun. His finger twitched as he put it on the trigger, and for a moment he was tempted to just pull the trigger. Then a woman holding a toddler followed by a girl of about twelve came into the doorway behind Cliff. Fenton held his fire._

 _"Freeze! Hands behind your head!" he ordered. It was the first words he had said since Dan had kicked him in the jaw, and it hurt to speak more than he would have expected. He glanced at the woman and the girl and added, "You too."_

 _Cliff slowly raised his hands and put them on the back of his head. The woman began to set her child down so that she could obey. The girl stared with wide, frightened eyes as she started to obey. Then, with no warning and for no apparent reason, she gave a loud, shrill shriek. Fenton jumped in surprise and looked at her._

 _The momentary distraction was all Cliff needed. At once, his hands came away from his head and shot into the pocket of his coat. Fenton had no time to think. He whipped around and fired a shot. It struck Cliff in the chest. For a second, he staggered, and then he fell face forward on the ground._

 _The woman screamed this time. Before Fenton could react again, she disappeared through the doorway with the girl and the toddler and slammed the door. Fenton made a dive to get behind a car, not knowing whether the woman would try to shoot at him from a window. Once he was safely out of view, a nauseated dizziness came over him, and he blacked out._

 _It seemed like only a moment later when he came to, with the sound of sirens approaching him. A black-and-white pulled up right next to him, and two uniformed officers rushed to his side._

 _"Lieutenant, you okay?" one of the officers asked._

 _Fenton shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Then he nodded. "I'm not hit or anything."_

 _"What happened?" the other officer questioned._

 _"It's the Moriare brothers," Fenton said. "I got one and the other ran away. There's a woman in the house with a girl, twelve, and a toddler." He paused before he choked out, "They got Johnson."_

 _Within minutes, several more black-and-whites and unmarked cars arrived on the scene. Among them was another lieutenant, who ordered the woman and children out of the apartment. There was not so much as a sound from within. It took an unbearably long time, so it seemed to Fenton, before they finally realized that the apartment was empty. The woman and the two children must have escaped while Fenton was passed out._

 _An ambulance had arrived in the meantime, and medical teams checked on Mitch Johnson and Cliff Moriare, although it was evident that they were both dead. When they got back to the station, another detective, Lieutenant Byers, began to question Fenton about what had happened. It was horrible to have to recount such a terrible scene and Fenton resented it, but if he had been in a clearer frame of mind, he would have admitted that it was necessary to get all the details as soon as possible, before doubts and flawed memories began to change what Fenton thought had happened._

 _Byers was particularly interested in Fenton explaining why he had shot Cliff – what had happened and how. He made Fenton go over it so many times, Fenton thought he wouldn't be able to bear it._

 _"I told you before, the girl screamed and distracted me for a minute. Moriare went for his gun, and so I shot."_

 _"Did you see the gun?" Byers asked._

 _"No, not then," Fenton admitted. "But I know he had one."_

 _"How did you know?"_

 _"He had just used it a few minutes ago."_

 _"Did you see it then?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"Did you see what he did with it after he shot Sergeant Johnson?"_

 _"No. I looked away."_

 _"So you didn't see a gun when you shot Moriare. Is that correct?"_

 _"No."_

 _"What exactly did you see?"_

 _"I saw him reach for his coat pocket, and I knew he had a gun."_

 _"What kind of gun did he have?"_

 _"A Glock 19."_

 _"How do you know?"_

 _"It was Sergeant Johnson's gun. I saw him take it away from him."_

 _"How big would you saw Moriare's coat pocket was?"_

 _"It looked big enough to fit a gun that size in."_

 _Another detective came into the room and interrupted the conversation. "Dan Moriare turned himself in. He's being booked right now."_

 _"Any word on the woman or the girl yet?" Byers asked him._

 _"Nothing."_

 _As the detective left again after delivering his message, Byers turned to Fenton again. "Your story sounds good. I know you, and I know you're telling the truth, Hardy. This one's going to be bad, though. It's going to take a while to get it all settled."_

 _"Why?" Fenton asked._

 _"We checked Moriare's body," Byers said. "He didn't have a gun on him."_

 _Fenton shook his head in bewilderment. "That's impossible. I know he had a gun. He took Johnson's."_

 _"We found Johnson's gun inside the apartment," Byers explained. "It looks like he left it there when he came back out. At any rate, he didn't have it on him."_

 _Fenton couldn't have felt worse as it sank in that he had shot – and killed – an unarmed man. The fact that Moriare had been a murderer and had killed Fenton's best friend in cold blood a few moments earlier made little difference to that horrible realization._


	9. Chapter 9

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to max2013, BMSH, and Cherylann Rivers for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter IX

"The FBI doesn't think much of your idea," Sam Radley told Joe as he hung up the phone after talking to them. "They say it's just as possible for Frank and Nancy to be in Sackville as anywhere else, and they're not really convinced yet that they're not in or around River Heights."

Sam was in the Hardys' living room with Joe, his parents, Aunt Gertrude, Iola, Chet, and Callie. Between Clarissa's painting and George's discovery of Nancy's cell phone, Joe had had a hunch that perhaps Frank and Nancy were being taken to Sackville, Colorado. He had talked it over with his dad and Sam, and they had both agreed that there just might be something to it. After Clarissa had turned up during Nancy's case two years ago, they had all been assuming that she was a part of the conspiracy. If that was so, it would make sense that they would go to a place she was familiar with while they put the next stage of their plan into action. Fenton and Joe had elected Sam to report the theory to the FBI; since he was not a relative, the authorities might be less likely to dismiss the idea as a wild, over-hopeful fantasy if it came from him. Evidently, though, that hadn't quite done it.

"So, they're not even going to check it out?" Joe asked.

"No," Sam replied, "which isn't all bad, since it means that this one is all ours if we want to follow it up. What do you think, Fenton?"

"I'm not sure," Fenton said. "It seems like a plausible lead to me, but it's at least equally plausible that it's a coincidence. It would take a long time to check it out, too, and we might not have that time."

As he said the last few words, Joe's phone began to ring. "It's George," he said, swiping the screen to answer it. "I asked her to call me back. Hello, George? We've got a whole bunch of people here. I'm going to put you on speaker phone, if that's okay with you."

"Sure," George replied. "I've got Burt and Mr. Drew and Ned and Bess and Dave here with me, too, so I'll put you on speaker phone, too."

After making sure everything was working right so that everybody could hear on both end of the line, Joe explained his idea once again. "We told the FBI, but they think we're out of our heads, apparently. We've been talking about whether it's worthwhile to follow up on this big of a hunch. What do any of you think?" Joe concluded.

There was silence on the other end of the line as Nancy's friends contemplated. Finally, it was Carson who broke the silence.

"I don't know," he said. "I know Nancy plays hunches all the time. It's just such a big risk to take."

"Is it?" Sam asked. "I've worked with Joe a lot, and I've seen him play a lot of hunches. They've almost always got something to them. I'm more than half convinced he could be right on this one. Besides that, what else are we going to do? There's a fine line between helping and hindering when it comes to the FBI. In my experience, the safest and most effective thing to do is to go at it from a different angle from them. This is one they're not considering. We might as well look into it rather than sit around and twiddle our thumbs."

"Mr. Radley's right," Bess spoke up. She was never one to miss an opportunity to say what she was thinking. "We're certainly not going to do any good here in River Heights, and that goes double for all of you in Bayport. If this Clarissa person has some kind of connection to Sackville, it would make sense for them to take Nancy and Frank there."

"Unless they figure that that would be too obvious and would be the first place anybody'd look," Dave put in.

"But obviously no one's looking there," Burt said. "I think it sounds like a good plan."

"I think we should ask the people with some experience in this kind of thing what they think," Ned commented. "Mr. Radley says he's for it. What about you, Mr. Hardy?"

"It's possible there's something to this," Fenton said. "It's a big chance, but Sam does make a point. We don't really have any other leads. I'd be willing to try it, as long as we give ourselves some room for safety."

"What do you mean, Dad?" Joe asked.

"I think Sam and Joe and I should go to run down this clue," he replied. "I know that's not what I said before, but I've had some time to think it over now. Carson and Ned should come, too. Between having five people who know what we're doing there and the fact that, from the research we did earlier, Sackville looks like it's a small town, we could probably wrap up the investigation there fairly quickly if it turns out to be a dead end. It also leaves our bases here and in River Heights covered. Callie, Iola, Chet, and their friends can keep trying to learn what they can about Clarissa and Evan Donahue, as well as help Laura and Gertrude keep an eye out in case these people show back up here. Bess, George, Burt, and Dave can keep working on anything they've got going on there. We can take my plane, and that way if anything comes up, we can get back to either River Heights or Bayport quickly. What do you say, Carson?"

Carson took a few moments to think it over. Then he said, "Okay. Let's try it."

"We'll leave here first thing in the morning," Fenton went on. "We'll meet you and Ned at the River Heights airport at ten."

HBNDHBND

Fenton's plane, which was piloted by his old friend Jack Wayne, landed in River Heights right at ten. Ned's father had given him and Carson a ride to the airport, and so they lost no time getting in the air again.

Sitting still in the plane gave Joe time to think again. The fast-paced detective work of the last twenty-four hours had kept him pretty well occupied, but now that dark feeling was creeping up on him again. He dozed off once for only a few minutes, and he was immediately plunged into a dream where he saw Terry Shanth pointing a gun at him and firing, and Iola screamed. He woke up with a start, breathing heavily and sweat on his forehead.

The others were all busy talking over plans to make this trip as efficient as possible, and none of them seemed to notice him. That was good. He didn't need them to worry about him now.

HBNDHBND

"George, are you sure this is a good idea?" Bess asked.

It was early in the afternoon now. Bess and George were sitting in George's car in front of the state penitentiary about two hundred miles from River Heights. They had found out from Joe about Sam Radley's suspicions that Robert Worthing knew more about the case than he had led Nancy to think. George had been disappointed that she hadn't gotten to go to Sackville with Ned and the others, but she thought she'd make up for it by looking into Worthing. So, she and Bess had driven out to see if they could visit him.

"Oh, come on, Bess." George rolled her eyes. "There's nothing dangerous about visiting a guy who's in jail. They don't even let you see them without a glass partition and talking through a phone. What's he going to do?"

"Yeah, I know," Bess said. "It's just – what are we even going to say to him?"

That caught George off-guard. She didn't really have a plan. "We'll figure it out when we get in there."

" _If_ they let us see him," Bess added.

That wasn't as much of a problem as Bess thought it might be. Nancy had tried to visit Worthing, whom she knew as Robin, numerous times over the last two years to try to apologize and explain what had happened, but he had refused to see her each time. He knew that Bess and George were friends of hers, but he agreed to see them anyway. When he appeared on the other side of the glass partition, George was glad to see that he hadn't changed much.

He greeted George coolly and then said, "I don't think I've met your friend."

"This is my cousin, Bess Marvin," George introduced the two. "I'm really glad you let us see you, Robin. There's a lot we need to clear up."

"Yeah, no kidding," Robin replied. "Like what the deal was with Nancy turning me in. She said she wouldn't."

"And she didn't," Bess told him. "That Moriare gang that you were helping her take down did."

"Mm-hmm." Robin looked unconvinced. "Look, I mostly just wanted to give you a message to tell Nancy. I've got another year in jail here. In the past two years, I've done a lot of thinking. She doesn't have to worry about me going back to that Robin Hood thing. It was wrong. But that doesn't mean I understand why she burned me."

"For the last time, she didn't," George said.

"Whatever," Robin cut her off. "That's not the whole message. I don't understand why she did it, but I want to prove to her that I'm not going to be petty about this."

"Well, that's very big of you," George replied. "We'll be sure to give her the message if we ever see her again."

"If you – what?" Robin looked taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"Nancy's been kidnapped by those same people," George explained. "We need you to tell us everything you know about them. Anything at all. You saw more of them than I did, even though they kidnapped me for a while. If there's anything you didn't say before, we need to hear it now. It will be a great chance for you to prove how not petty you are." She couldn't resist throwing in that last sarcastic remark.

Robin shook his head, still trying to comprehend what he had just heard. He dropped his injured attitude at once. "I'm really sorry. Really. I know how I sounded a minute ago, but I've never believed that Nancy turned me in just to be malicious. She probably felt like it was her duty to turn me in, since she's a detective and all. I'd never want anything like this to happen to her."

"That's great," George said, "but do you know anything?"

"Yeah," Robin replied. "That's what the rest of the message was. In fact, I was going to ask the warden to call Nancy and ask her to come here. I found out something about those people while I've been in jail here, and I thought Nancy might like to know it."

"How did you find out something here in jail?" Bess asked.

"Well, it shouldn't be too big a surprise that Nancy has a lot of enemies in this penitentiary. I overheard one of them – a guy named Trevor Sedge – saying that he'd had some gal named Margot offer him to be part of a deal to get revenge on Nancy for something."

"Is that all?" George pressed him.

"No. This girl mentioned the name Evangeline Moriare. Sedge thinks it was a mistake on her part. Said she acted like she hadn't meant to mention it. I recognized the last name and figured it probably has something to do with than Dan Moriare character. That's all I know."

"Okay," George said. "Thanks for telling us."

She and Bess stood up to go.

"Hey." Robin stopped them. "I wish there was something I could do to help."

"You maybe already did," Bess told him.

"Yeah, well. I wish I could do more. I'll say some prayers that you find her."


	10. Chapter 10

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you again for reading this story! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, BMSH, max2013, Guest, EvergreenDreamweaver, and Candylou for your reviews on the last chapter and to EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on Chapters 6, 7, and 8, as well!_

Chapter X

There was silence in the room where Nancy and Frank were imprisoned for a long time after Nancy finished the story. She wished there was something she could say to make it easier on Frank, but she couldn't quite tell how he felt about it. In all honesty, Frank couldn't tell how he felt about it either. The whole thing was just so overwhelming.

"So, it was self-defense," Nancy said finally. "Your dad really thought Cliff had a gun. He had every reason to think he had one and that he'd use it. No one blamed him for it even at the time, other than this group, evidently, and their mental stability is pretty questionable at best, anyway."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right," Frank replied, although he wasn't sure if he really believed what he was saying. "I just wish Dad would have told me himself. It might make it easier."

"He should have told you when this all started up two years ago," Nancy said. "You and Joe needed to know why it was happening and what kind of people you were up against, at least as much as your dad could tell you. Before that, though, I don't blame him at all. I hope I won't have to tell my kids something like that someday. Besides that, he needed to know that you were old enough to not just think in black and white – you know, good guys and bad guys. You – and me, too, for that matter – have had a ridiculous number of cases where the good guys and bad guys were just that. Maybe we weren't mature enough to realize that's not the way it always works. Sometimes the good guys make mistakes. That's what this was – a terrible, tragic, and accidental mistake."

"When did your dad tell you about this?" Frank asked.

Nancy looked away. "Two years ago."

"Obviously your dad realized you could handle it."

"He didn't have to tell it about himself," Nancy said. "Sure, the case was rough on him, but the worst part wasn't necessarily related to the case itself. The worst part was – my mom. But I knew about that already."

"Do you think any less of my dad because of it?" Frank asked, although he dreaded the answer a bit.

Nancy looked at her hands as she weighed the question. She wanted to be completely honest, but she wasn't quite sure what the exact truth was. "No," she said finally. "If anything, I think more highly of him for it."

"Nancy." Frank's tone was reproachful. He didn't want her to say something that wasn't so just to make him feel better, and this certainly wasn't something that should make her gain respect for his father.

"It's true," Nancy said with more certainty this time. "I know it sounds weird, but hear me out. Your dad was a cop, and he knew he had to think fast in situations like that. He also had been beaten up and seen his best friend murdered minutes before. He had every reason to think the murderer still had the gun. He saw him reach for his pocket – which is a logical place to have a gun. It was an easy mistake to make, and no one blamed him for it. He could have just gone on and not changed anything he did or how he thought about stuff or anything, and he wouldn't have been wrong. Or he could have thrown in the towel and given up anything to do with law enforcement altogether. That's probably what I would have done. But he didn't do either. He turned to private detective work where he's less likely to get in gun fights or anything like that, but he's still doing something important – as in life-and-death important sometimes – and it's something he's very good at. That takes a lot of guts, and a lot of humility, too. Those are both qualities worth admiring. But you know what? That's not why I admire him."

"It's not?" Frank asked.

"No," Nancy replied. "It's because he didn't try to suffocate you and Joe because of it. After something like that, he could have put his foot down and not let you two solve mysteries anymore, because he wouldn't want either of you to ever get in a situation like that. He would have protected you if he had. You'd both have a few less scars and a lot less near brushes with death. But you wouldn't be you then. You'd most likely not be as brave or kind or compassionate or selfless as you are now. It's not that you'd have been juvenile delinquents, of course. You just wouldn't have gotten so many chances to build up your characters so young. Worst of all, you wouldn't be as close to your parents – that's pretty tough to do when you're a teenager with overprotective parents – and you and Joe might not even be as close to each other. You've had to depend on each other and stand up for each other a lot more than most brothers, and so you're also closer than most brothers. It couldn't have been easy for your dad to let you be the kind of people you want to be – that much has always been obvious, but this makes it even more amazing. And we're all better off for it. So, yeah. I've always thought a lot of your dad, but I think even more of him now."

Frank couldn't make eye contact with Nancy for most of what she said. He ran his fingers through his hair and felt awkward for not saying anything right away. To try to cover up the awkwardness, he said, "Wow. That's probably the most embarrassing speech anyone's ever given about me. Half of it's not true."

"Do you think I would have said it if it wasn't true?" Nancy replied. "But let's let it drop for now. We can hash it out later. Right now, we need to figure out how to escape from here."

"That's going to be easier said than done." Frank was glad to change the subject. "No windows means the door is the only way out. It's locked and probably guarded. Even if we could get through it, we'd have to go through the house to get outside."

Nancy looked around at the mostly empty room. "There's not much in here that could help. Unless –" Her eyes strayed to the single lightbulb in the ceiling.

Frank followed her gaze. Then they looked at each other and grinned slightly as they realized the same idea had occurred to them both. Now they just needed to figure out the best way to make it work.

They hadn't had much time to think when the door opened. Terry and one of the thugs came in. Instinctively, Nancy and Frank huddled closer together as if to protect each other. Terry grimaced at them.

"I should take a picture of this and send it to Callie and Ned Nickerson," he said. "I wonder what they'd have to say about it."

The childish remark broke any spell of terror he might have held over his two prisoners. They both breathed a little easier and relaxed.

Terry didn't seem to notice. "That's not what I came to take pictures of, though. Let's get the tripod set up."

He and the other man began putting up a tripod and a digital camcorder. The sight reminded Nancy of what Terry had said in the car about killing Frank and recording it to send to Fenton. She caught her breath and looked fearfully at Frank.

Even without having heard Terry's threats, Frank was concerned what the young man had in mind. He already knew that Terry hated him, enough so that Evangeline hadn't even let them ride in the same car. Obviously, Terry was up to no good now.

"Terry," Nancy said. She hoped that distracting him might derail whatever his plans were. "I wanted to ask you something."

"About what I have planned for your boyfriend here?" Terry sneered.

"No. And he's not my boyfriend," Nancy replied, scrambling to think of something to ask.

"Oh, sure," Terry mocked her. "As if anyone couldn't see that you two have always had a thing for each other. You know, Ned Nickerson deserved you, Nancy. Anyone who's dumb enough to settle for someone who puts him last in her priorities deserves a girl who has more than one boyfriend at a time."

Frank half-stood up, disgusted and angered by the accusation. "Would you just shut up? As if you even cared about any of us."

Terry responded with a look of feigned offense. "Of course, I care about all of you. Especially you and your family, Frank, after what your dad did to me and my family."

As much as Nancy hadn't wanted to, Terry's unexpected accusation had made her blush. She smoothed back her hair and tried to change the subject. "Speaking of your dad, if Cliff was your father, that means Evangeline is your aunt and Dan is your uncle, right?"

Terry slow-clapped. "Bravo, Nancy Drew. That must have taken some detective work to figure out."

"So you must know where Dan is." Nancy ignored his sarcasm. "I've been wondering since I didn't see him around here."

"Dan. Dan. Poor old Uncle Dan." Terry shook his head. "You won't be seeing him around anymore."

"You mean he's dead?" Frank couldn't conceal his shock.

"Dead?" Terry repeated. "No. But he'd probably just as soon be. Evangeline's been keeping him in a safe place ever since he proved how untrustworthy he was by helping Nancy and her little friends escape two years ago. He's too much of a weakling. Always has been."

"Like your mother?" Frank asked before he thought it through. Terry's words now were too similar to his heartless response to his mother's death to fail to remind Frank of it.

Terry's face contorted in a way that Frank and Nancy couldn't decide whether it was anger or regret. Then he burst out, "Yes, exactly like my mother. Only worse. If Dan would have just blown Frank's old man's brains out when he had the chance, my dad would still be alive. None of this would be happening to you now. You have Dan and his weak-willed mercy to thank just as much as Fenton Hardy and Carson Drew."

"If what's happening now is the consequence of Dad not being killed seventeen years ago, I'll take it," Frank said.

"Your mother never did anything like that," Nancy put in. "She didn't cause your father's death. Why did you have her killed?"

"I didn't," Terry muttered. "Evangeline did."

"Then why are you sticking with her?" Nancy went on. "She killed your mother."

"Yeah," Terry said. "And I'm not the only one either."

"What do you mean?" Nancy asked.

"She had your mother killed, too," Terry replied.

"What?" Nancy gaped at him as if he had suddenly grown a second head. That wouldn't have been much more unbelievable than the revelation he had just made.

"That's right," Terry replied. "Evangeline didn't exactly have her killed. She was only twelve at the time, of course. But it was her idea. It has always all been her idea. She's always been the brains behind everything, and she's always been the one to get everybody to listen to her. Carson Drew was too smart for his own good. Between him and Hardy, even Evangeline was up against a rock. She had to find a way to get him off the case. Dad wanted to just knock him off, but Evangeline thought this way was better."

Nancy felt like she'd been punched, and she sagged against Frank. Frank put an arm around her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

Terry turned to the camcorder again, trained it on his prisoners, and pressed the record button. "I'm tired of talking about this. Let's get down to business. Help me tie him up, Will."

He and the other thug descended on Frank. Frank tried to fight back, but the two men were too strong for him and within moments were binding his hands fast. Nancy grabbed at Terry and tried to kick him. As soon as Frank's hands were secure, the kidnappers turned on Nancy and tied her hands behind her back as well, shoving her to the side.

Frank, too, had been pushed to the floor. Terry kicked him hard in the stomach. "This is for you, Fenton Hardy," he said in the direction of the camcorder. He began showering Frank with kicks.

"Stop it!" Nancy screamed.


	11. Chapter 11

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Once again, thank you so much for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, BMSH, Candylou, angelicalkiss, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XI

It was frustrating how long investigations took. Ned knew that Fenton and Carson were working as fast as they could, but even though they arrived in Sackville, Colorado in the early afternoon, they hadn't accomplished anything yet other than finding hotel rooms and doing some research on the layout of the town. Now it was early evening, and Sam had insisted they all go to bed and get some sleep so that they'd be fresh to begin their search in the morning.

The owner of the one small hotel was thrilled that the new arrivals had taken three rooms. Carson and Ned were sharing one, Fenton and Joe were sharing another, and Sam and Jack Wayne took the third. Ned knew he wasn't going to get any sleep, and so he didn't bother going to bed right away. Carson felt much the same, but whether he could have fallen asleep or not, George was keeping him awake. She had called his phone in excitement to tell him about some discovery she had made.

While Carson and George talked, Ned sat in a stiff, uncomfortable chair in the corner of the room. He slipped a small, velvet box out of his pocket and opened it. Even in the dreary light cast by the dim lamp that served as the room's sole illumination, the diamond sparkled in its white gold setting. That ring should have been on Nancy's finger by now, not still in its box. Once again, Ned swore to himself that they'd find Nancy and Frank.

"He said what?" Carson's incredulous exclamation cut into Ned's musings, and he looked up. "He didn't hear any more?" Carson asked. "Okay. Yeah, that does help, George. As a matter of fact, it tells me more than I want to know. No, never mind. It's just a feeling." He ended the call with a grim expression.

"What's wrong?" Ned asked, a pang of worry piercing his heart.

"Bess and George learned something," Carson said as he typed out a text on his phone and sent it. "Fenton and the rest ought to hear this."

A few moments later, the rest of their company, whom Carson had texted, arrived at the door for a brief conference. Carson recounted his conversation with George, in which she had told him what she and Bess had learned from Robin.

"The name Robin overheard was Evangeline Moriare," Carson finished.

Fenton nodded slowly. "That makes sense. So much so that it's not exactly earth-shaking."

"I'm not so sure," Carson replied. "I only met Evangeline once and that was when she was a girl. I'd be willing to stake my life on it that she's more dangerous than her brothers ever were."

"Cliff and Dan have a sister now?" Sam asked. "Why didn't I hear about this?"

"She's a lot younger than them," Carson explained. "She was only twelve or thirteen when – all of that happened. I saw her once, and there was something about her. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but as I said, I'm certain she's dangerous."

"And she's got Nancy and Frank," Ned said, stating the obvious. "Why are we just sitting around? Let's get out there and start looking."

Sam shook his head. "There's not enough time to do anything tonight. We might as well get some sleep. It'll do us more good in the long run."

"I'll never be able to get to sleep," Ned replied. He dug his hands into his pockets, clasping his right one around the velvet box. Stepping toward the door, he added, "I'm going to go for a walk."

"It's probably best if you don't go out by yourself," Sam cautioned him.

"I'll go with him," Joe spoke up. "I could use some fresh air myself. We won't be gone more than half an hour."

He and Ned walked down through the hotel's lobby and out onto the sidewalk. The last bit of fading daylight would have been beautiful, if only their thoughts could have been on more pleasant subjects.

Joe glanced at Ned. "Lucky rabbit's foot?" he asked.

The question caught Ned off-guard, and he had no idea what Joe was even talking about. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"I noticed you've been holding onto something pretty tight since we picked you up this morning," Joe explained. "I've been trying to figure out what it was. You don't really seem the type that would be carrying a lucky rabbit's foot, though."

"No, I'm not," Ned replied. He didn't much care to say what it was that he'd been holding onto. "Joe, do – do you think –" He couldn't get the question out.

It had been uppermost in Joe's mind for quite some time now, so he had no trouble guessing what Ned was trying to ask. "No. I don't think they've done that. I think I'd know it if they had."

"But what's to stop them?" Even thinking of the possibility made a lump form in Ned's throat. "They're out for revenge. Besides, they tried pretty hard to kill you." The words were out before he even thought about it.

Joe froze. It only took a sentence as simple as that for it to all start flooding back on him. His heart started beating faster, and he closed his eyes, trying to shut out the thought.

"Joe, I'm sorry," Ned said. "I shouldn't have said that. Are you okay?"

With an effort, Joe nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm all right. It's all right. She's safe. He can't hurt her again."

Ned was a little confused by all of that, and it concerned him as well. "Look, I – Maybe we should talk about something else. We've both been under a lot of pressure the last couple days."

Joe managed a half-smile. "Sure. It's no problem talking about movies or football or whatever while all this is going." He sighed and dropped the sarcasm. "Really, though, Ned. I don't know."

"You don't know what?" Ned asked.

"Anything." Joe shrugged. "This case – I've never had one like it. I hope I never have another. Two years ago, I was just a kid with a crush on the most amazing girl in the world. I know every guy says that, but it's true about Iola. I didn't even know how true it was back then. I thought we'd get married and always be happy – in the most non-boring and cheesy way possible. But then I almost got her killed. Don't try to say it wasn't my fault – it was. I shouldn't have taken her there. I should have been more careful and watched my back. At first, I thought maybe I hadn't lost her. I tried to talk to her. But I couldn't even be around her without thinking about _that_ , without completely freaking out over every sound. I couldn't take it anymore, so I pushed her away. For over a year, I barely even talked to her. Then I couldn't take that either, and last September my parents made me start seeing a therapist. It didn't help at first, but then around Thanksgiving things started to look up. I started talking to my friends again, and it was almost normal. I thought it was all going to be okay after all. Then this started up again. No, wait. It was before that. When I went out with Iola, and Biff was bugging us – he was just teasing us. He would have cleared out in a minute or two. Although, if what happened had to happen, I'm glad he was there. Anyway – It happened again. A waitress dropped a stack of plates, and I was back there again. Back in that dark, overgrown yard with Terry leering at me and Iola dying in my arms. Now it's all back. It's two years ago all over again, but this time I realize that I'm never going to leave it behind, no matter how this turns out. So, I guess – I don't know what I'm. I don't even know why I'm telling you all this. It was probably more than you wanted to hear."

Ned didn't say anything right away. It was hard to think what to say. Finally, he found some words – he just hoped they were the right ones. "Joe, either we'll find them or Nancy and Frank will escape. Either way, we'll catch these people once and for all, and none of them are going to get even a 'light' sentence of fifteen years this time. Murder, kidnapping, attempted murder – they're never going to be able to come back with charges like those. Then they'll be the ones who can't come back from this. As for you, you'll be fine. You may not think it, but the fact that you're holding together at all is a good sign. You're going to be fine."

"This isn't something you just get over in a day," Joe said.

"Then stop worrying about it that you haven't recovered in a day," Ned told him. "If you –"

Tires squealed behind them. Both Ned and Joe looked back to see a car coming up onto the sidewalk toward them. They were next to a low picket fence. Acting quickly, Joe shoved Ned over it and then jumped over himself as the car continued barreling toward them.

HBNDHBND

"Stop!" Nancy screamed again as Terry and the other thug continued to kick and punch Frank.

With his hands tied the way they were, Frank didn't even have a chance to fight back. Nancy strained against her own bonds, her only thought being that she had to get Frank away from his attackers at once, even though she certainly wouldn't be any match for them.

The door swung open again and this time, Clarissa, who had heard Nancy scream, appeared in the doorway. She gasped as she took in the scene and then darted forward to grab onto Terry's arm.

"Stop it!" she ordered him. "What do you think you're doing?"  
Terry shook her off his arm. "Get out of here, Clarissa. This isn't any of your business."

"Evangeline!" Clarissa shrieked at the top of her lungs, dashing back toward the door. "Evangeline! Come quick!"

Her cries were soon answered by the sound of feet rapidly approaching. Evangeline arrived a moment later. Although she retained her calm, a flash of anger showed in her eyes. "Terry, Will, stop that," she commanded.

Sulkily, the two men ceased their hail of blows on Frank, who now lay on the floor, gasping painfully for breath. Without another word, Will took down the camcorder set up, and he and Terry disappeared up the stairs.

"Make sure he's all right," Evangeline told Clarissa before following them.

Tears in her eyes, Clarissa turned to look at Frank. Nancy was already at his side, though her hands were still tied and there was nothing she could do to help him. Sniffling, Clarissa knelt next to her, took a pocket knife from her pocket, and slit Nancy's bonds. While Clarissa cut Frank's bond as well, Nancy quickly surveyed Frank's injuries.

"Do you have any disinfectant around here?" Nancy asked. "And blankets? You didn't put any on the cots."

Clarissa shook herself as if out of a daze. "Oh. Right. Yeah. I'll go get some."

As she hurried away, Frank blinked groggily and made a move as if to get up. Nancy gently pushed him back down.

"You'd better stay still for now," she advised him.

Frank again tried to raise himself up, and he winced at the sharp pain. "I guess you're right."

"When you're up to it, I can help you get over to one of the cots," Nancy said. "They don't look too comfy, but they're probably better than the floor."

"Maybe." Frank gave her a half-smile. "Don't worry, Nance. I've been in worse shape than this. I'm fine."

"This time, maybe," Nancy replied. "Who knows about next time? We need to get out of here as soon as possible."


	12. Chapter 12

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you so much for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to BMSH, Candylou, EvergreenDreamweaver, Cherylann Rivers, and max2013 for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XII

Joe rolled past some low shrubs in an attempt to get as far out of the path of the oncoming car as possible. To his relief, it stopped short of the picket fence, returned to the street, and sped off. Joe and Ned picked themselves up carefully.

"That driver could have killed us," Ned sputtered.

"I think that's what he was trying to do," Joe said, brushing the dirt off his jeans. "Which is great news."

"How so?" Ned asked.

"It means we're in the right place," Joe explained. "They must have brought Frank and Nancy here. Or at the very least, there must be some clue in this town that they don't want us to find. Either way, we're on the right track."

Ned plucked a twig out of his hair. "But if they were trying to kill us, why didn't they? They had us."

"Maybe they were just trying to scare us – probably to psyche us out more than anything." Joe shrugged. "It's a good sign no matter how you slice it."  
"So what's our next move?" Ned asked. "Knowing they're nearby is good, but we need to figure out exactly where they are."

Joe nodded slowly. All he had seen of the car was that it was a silver four-door. He hadn't seen the license plate or even the make or model. A suspicion was forming in the back of his mind, though. "You're not going to like this, but I have a plan."

HBNDHBND

Clarissa was gone about fifteen minutes before she returned with a blanket, a small bottle, and several cold compresses in her arms. She handed the blanket to Nancy, who spread it over Frank.

"I couldn't find any disinfectant," Clarissa admitted. "All I could find was some regular whiskey. They always use that for a disinfectant in movies – I don't know if it really works."

"Whiskey." Nancy glanced up at the lightbulb in the ceiling again thoughtfully. Almost immediately, she shook herself and looked at Clarissa. "If you don't have anything else, it works." She took the bottle, but she put it carefully to the side.

"I'm sorry, Frank. I didn't want anything like this to happen," Clarissa said.

"You could have fooled me," Frank replied.

"Hey, patients shouldn't talk," Nancy told him. "That's in movies, too." She had an idea, but she couldn't say what it was with Clarissa there. She could only hope that Frank would take the hint and let her do the talking.

For his part, Frank had no desire to talk to Clarissa, and he could see Nancy had some plan. He was willing enough not to talk, and fortunately what he had already said played into Nancy's idea just fine. It struck a chord with Clarissa, and her tears came back to her eyes.

"You have to believe me about this," she pleaded.

"Well, you've got to admit it's a little hard to believe under the circumstances," Nancy said.

Clarissa stood up and began pacing up and down the room. "I didn't realize how out of control they are. I never would have gotten mixed up in this if I did."

"You knew that they were plotting to kill your father and several other people," Nancy pointed out.

At that, Clarissa stopped with her back to Nancy and stared at the wall. A tear splashed down her cheek and onto the floor. "My stepfather. Simeon was never a father to me." She whirled around and knelt on the floor next to Nancy, grabbing her hand earnestly. "Nancy, you don't understand half of it. You can't. My real dad died when I was little, and my mom never had time for me. She had to work all the time. She married Simeon when I was fourteen. She thought it would make it easier on both of us. She thought we could finally be a family. But Simeon wasn't any kind of a father or a husband. He beat her, and me too when I tried to intervene. After a couple years, Mom couldn't take it anymore. She left one night, and they found her car in the river. All I've ever wanted was to have someone who cared about me, but I didn't think anyone ever would. I tried to get away. I had the biggest dreams. I was going to be an artist and go away to Paris or I was going to be an actress and go to Broadway. But everyone was always telling me I'd never make it, that I didn't have any talent. And everybody at school was always making fun of me, saying I was pretentious and a terrible actress. Then Terry started taking notice of me. He was the only one who was ever nice to me – except for Joe, but Joe's always been head-over-heels about Iola. I knew I didn't have a chance with him. But Terry came along, and he gave me the first real hope that I could ever escape Simeon, but it didn't help. Terry's just as messed up as Simeon was, and there's nothing anyone can do to get me away from him. If I would have just stuck it out, I'd be old enough to be on my own and Simeon couldn't get to me now. If he didn't kill me first. Either way, I'd be free now."

Nancy listened carefully to the story. "Well, the other kids at your school had one thing wrong for sure."

"What's that?" Clarissa asked.

Extracting her hand from Clarissa's grasp, Nancy replied, "You're not a terrible actress. You can play either the part of the cold-hearted criminal or the damsel in distress, and I'm not really not sure which one's real."

"You know, neither am I," Clarissa said.

Nancy glanced down again at the bottle of whiskey. "I think I know a way to find out."

"How?" Clarissa asked.

"Help us escape," Nancy told her.

A look of terror came into Clarissa's eyes. "I couldn't. She'd find out. She'd have me killed. The only reason she didn't kill Dan is because he's her brother. I'm nobody to her. I'm worse than nobody to her – I'm the stepdaughter of one of her enemies. She'd be more than happy to find an excuse to kill me. The only way I've lasted this long was by making myself useful to her. If I wasn't, she'd kill me without a second thought."

"Then you'll have to come with us," Nancy said. "I have a plan, but it's not going to work without you for three reasons."

"What are they?" Clarissa asked.

"First, you have a pocket knife, and I need it. Second, you have the key to that door. I need that, too. And lastly, you know where we're at, and we need a guide."

Clarissa thought about it for a few moments. "What do you want me to do?"

"Exactly what I just said," Nancy told her. "Give me your pocket knife and key and show us where to go when we get out of here."

Hesitating a little longer, Clarissa bit her lip. Finally, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her pocket knife and key. After giving them one more glance, she dropped them into Nancy's outstretched hand. "When are we going to go?"

"Right now sounds good to me," Nancy said. "Do you think you can make it, Frank?"

Frank sighed to stall for time as he made up his mind. He really didn't feel up to making an escape right now, but Nancy was right. They needed to get out as soon as possible. "Yeah. What do you have in mind, Nance?"

"Well, you're going to have to give up your blanket," Nancy told him. "But don't worry about that quite yet. It's going to be a few minutes, at least. I'm going to need you to help me build something, Clarissa. But first – how many people are in this house?"

"Just six," Clarissa said. "Gavin – the other guy who came with us when we brought you – is doing something in town. I don't know what. So it's just us, Terry, Will, and Evangeline."

"Are they all in the house?" Nancy asked.

"They were when I came down here."

"Will they all come down here if there's a fire? Or would they just leave us to burn to death?" Nancy inquired next.

"This our headquarters, so I don't think they'll let it burn up." Clarissa eyed her uncomfortably. "Are you going to set the place on fire?"

"I'm going to try," Nancy said. "Now help me."

The cots on either side of the room were collapsible. Nancy quickly took one apart. She cut the canvas part of it into three sections. Then she placed the legs end to end and wrapped one of the sections several times around the places where they met. With Clarissa's help, she wound the ropes that she and Frank had been bound with around the pieces of canvas several times until she could pick up the whole thing from one end without it falling apart.

"It wouldn't work very well for a walking stick, but I think it'll do for this," she commented. "All right. Now we're ready for your blanket, Frank."

Frank painfully got up and moved to against the wall. As Nancy cut the blanket into long strips, Clarissa placed the other cot directly underneath the lightbulb. When she had finished cutting up the blanket, Nancy put all but one of the pieces in a heap on the cot. Then she tied the remaining piece around one end of the rod she had made from the legs of the cot. Finally, she drenched both the rag on the end of the rod and the pieces of blanket on the cot with whiskey. She handed the now-empty glass bottle to Clarissa.

"Hold onto this. We might need it before all this is over." She herded Frank and Clarissa over behind the door where they wouldn't be seen right away if anyone came into the room and picked up the rod. "I sure hope this works."

"If it doesn't, we're all dead," Clarissa said gloomily.

Nancy stood as far back as she could and jabbed at the lightbulb with the end of the rod with the alcohol-soaked rag on it. The glass shattered, and there was a sizzling sound of sparks. As Nancy had hoped, many of the sparks fell on the rag. The whiskey it was soaked in began to burn, and Nancy dropped it onto the pile of rags on the cot. At once, they flared up into a decent-sized fire. Hurriedly, Nancy pulled her make-shift rod apart and handed one of the aluminum legs each to Frank and Clarissa, keeping one for herself as well. She grabbed one of the pieces of canvas and began to fan the fire. It blazed up higher.

"I think we can start screaming for help now," she said.

Clarissa, who was at this moment cowering behind Frank, needed no encouragement. She began to shriek at the top of her lungs. Frank and Nancy joined in.

"Help! Fire! Help! Help! Fire!"

There was a thunder of footsteps on the stairs, and the door burst open, admitting Terry and Will.

"What the –" Terry began.

Before either of them had a chance to reorient themselves, Nancy shoved Frank and Clarissa through the open door and slammed it shut behind her, locking it securely.

"You're going to let them burn up?" Clarissa protested.

"They've got a key." Nancy grabbed her and started to drag her up the steps. "Even if they didn't, they could break through that door if they needed to. It's just to slow them down. Let's not waste our head start."

They dashed up the stairs, although every step renewed the pain in Frank's bruises. They were nearly out the door when they were forced to a halt. Evangeline Moriare stood in the doorway ahead of them.


	13. Chapter 13

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you for continuing to read this story! Thank you in particular to BMSH, sm2003495, Cherylann Rivers, Canylou, max2013, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XIII

Nancy, Frank, and Clarissa froze as they were confronted with Evangeline. Behind them, they could hear Terry and Will trying to break through the door from the basement. Evidently, they had forgotten about their key. That was good – the escapees needed every second they could get, especially now that they were going to have to find a way past Evangeline.

As Nancy saw her standing in front of her, a sudden loathing came over her that she had never felt towards another human being before. What Terry had told her about her had come back into her mind. She didn't stop to question whether his story was even possible. She brandished the aluminum leg of the cot she was holding. "Let us through." She tried to make her voice sound as intimidating as she could.

Evangeline's face looked stricken. "How did you –" She let the sentence hang.

Nancy held the leg higher. "Out of the way!"

For a long moment, the two women stared at each other. Each was seething with the thought of what the other had done to her family. Nancy wanted nothing more than to use her makeshift weapon, but at the same time, it wasn't in her nature to do such a thing. Frustration washed over her. Surely, Evangeline would see that she couldn't use the weapon, no matter how much she wanted to. They would never escape now. Perhaps this frustration lent a flush of fury to Nancy's face that had a completely different result than she expected or perhaps Evangeline had no weapon herself and knew she stood no chance against three. At any rate, inexplicably and to Nancy's bewilderment, she backed away slowly and with an air of defeat. Clarissa, who was evidently completely terrified, rushed past. Nancy hesitated without lowering the aluminum leg. Realizing what was going on in his friend's mind, Frank grabbed Nancy's arm and pulled her through the doorway. Once they were outside, Nancy's instinct for survival returned, and she began to help Frank toward the woods. Fortunately, the house was situated in the woods, and so it took them only a few minutes before they were out of sight among the trees.

They continued running or trotting until they had gone about a mile. Then they stopped to hold a quick conference. Frank couldn't help but let out a groan as he lowered himself to the ground. Nancy winced in empathy.

Clarissa was panting heavily. Despite her terror and having no encumbrance to slow her down, she hadn't gotten so far ahead of Nancy and Frank that they lost sight of her. She was crying again.

"What are we going to do?" she wailed. "If they catch us, we're as good as dead."

"They won't catch us," Nancy told her. "Which way do we go to get to the nearest town?"

"I don't know," Clarissa sobbed.

"You don't know?" Frank asked. "How can you not know? I thought you were familiar with this area."  
"With the roads," Clarissa admitted, "but I don't know my way through the woods."

"That's just great," Frank grumbled.

"Can't you even give us a general idea of where the town is?" Nancy asked. "Or a major highway? All we need to do is get to civilization."

"I – I don't have a very good sense of direction," Clarissa said.

"Just try," Frank pleaded with her. "You must have some idea."

"I think –" Clarissa drew the word out as she looked all around her in every direction. "I think if we veer a little to the left, we'll come to the highway. I can find Sackville from there."

"Then we'd better get moving," Frank said. "There's no telling how far ahead we are of Clarissa's friends, and we don't want to give them the chance to catch up."

"Are you sure?" Nancy asked. "We can rest a little longer if you'd rather."

Frank forced himself to his feet. "No. We can't wait any longer. It will be a lot less painful to keep going than to let those people get hold of us again."

Clarissa shuddered at the thought. "Yes, let's keep going."

This time, they went at a much slower pace. They tried to leave as little trail as they could, but Frank and Nancy both knew that any experienced tracker would be able to follow them with little difficulty. Their best hope was that Evangeline and her henchmen weren't experienced trackers.

That hope seemed to hold up. For the rest of the afternoon, there wasn't the slightest sound of pursuit behind them, which gave them hope that they might actually escape. Unfortunately, though, the sun began to set before they had found the highway. Darkness settled over the woods, and they were forced to stop. They were tired, hungry, and thirsty, and Frank was weak and faint. Soon they would be cold, too, as May nights in the mountains could easily reached temperatures below freezing.

"We're lost!" Clarissa moaned. "We're going to die out here after all."

"We're not going to die," Frank told her, some annoyance showing in his voice. "It's not going to be too fun, but we won't die. The main thing is that we need water. We've got the whiskey bottle that we filled up at that last stream, but that won't last very. There's also a pretty good chance drinking it will make us sick, but there's nothing we can do about that without a water treatment kit."

Clarissa made a face. "Oh, ugh. Why didn't you tell me before I drank some of that water when we crossed the stream?" She clutched at her stomach. "I think I'm going to be sick."

Frank and Nancy exchanged annoyed glances and mutually elected to ignore her.

"The next thing," Nancy said, "is to find a way to stay warm tonight. We could build a fire, but that would be a dead giveaway to where we're at."

"Besides, we don't have anything to light a fire with," Frank pointed out. "Rubbing two sticks together is even harder than it sounds. It will be awkward and uncomfortable, but if we all huddle close together, we won't freeze to death. We won't get much sleep either, but it's better than nothing. We can also stuff our clothes with pine needles for insulation. It'll hurt, though."

Agreeing that this was the best thing they could do, they started gathering pine needles and stuffing them in their coats. Clarissa complained the entire time.

"I'll never be able to stand this," she bemoaned her situation. "It's like having a hundred needles sticking into me everywhere."

"That's probably because you do have a hundred needles sticking into you everywhere," Frank told her.

When they had finished, they all sat down back-to-back. They stayed like that for a long time, Clarissa complaining and crying by turns. To Nancy and Frank's combined relief and surprise, she eventually fell asleep.

"Nancy," Frank whispered after Clarissa's snores had assured him that she was really asleep. "Are you awake?"

"Mm-hmm," Nancy replied.

"I think we've got a problem, Nance."

"What is it?" Nancy asked.

"I've been thinking about it ever since we escaped," Frank said. "We got away way too easy. Evangeline just let us go, and I'm not entirely sure they chased us at all."

"I've been thinking the same thing," Nancy admitted. "What I can't figure out is why. What could they possibly be trying to gain by letting us escape?"

"Maybe they want us to die out here of the elements," Frank suggested.

"Maybe," Nancy agreed, unconvinced. "They don't really have any assurance that that will happen, though. We could find our way to the highway and get rescued."

"Unless we're really far from any civilization," Frank said. "We really have no idea."

"Or –" A sudden suspicion struck Nancy. "Or maybe they've got all the assurance they need. What if they're sending someone with us to make sure we don't get rescued?"

Frank groaned. "We should have thought of that."

"It was my big idea," Nancy said. "Not too brilliant, huh?"

"You have had better ideas," Frank told her. "We'll just have to be careful and watch her."

"Provided she's not pretending to be asleep right now and overhearing every word we say," Nancy added.

HBNDHBND

"What exactly is this plan of yours?" Ned asked as he followed Joe down the street.

They were headed in the direction that the car that had almost run them down had disappeared in. Joe's only reply was to wave for Ned to keep following him. He had an idea, but he wanted to make sure before he told Ned what it was. They rounded a corner, and Joe peered down the street. He nodded in satisfaction as he saw exactly what he expected.

"There it is," he said.

"The car." Ned stared in disbelief. "What kind of person tries to run some people over and then just parks around the corner?"

"Someone who wants to lead us into a trap," Joe replied.

"Something tells me we're going to walk right into that trap," Ned said.

"Something tells me we have to if we're going to find Nancy and Frank," Joe told him. "We might be able to outsmart them, though."

"That's not too easy when we don't even know what they're up to," Ned told him.

Joe took out his phone and typed out a text message to his dad, telling him what happened and giving him the license number, make, and model of the car, which Joe could now see. Then he went to look at the car closer. No one was in it. Joe tried the door and found it was unlocked.

"This is just weird." Ned frowned at the car. "What are they trying to do?"

Joe carefully checked the back seat of the car, but no one was hiding there. Then he opened the glove compartment. The registration, a road map, and a smartphone were inside.

"Evangeline Moriare," Joe read from the registration. "At least she used her real name."

He next unfolded the map. It showed the highway going out of town, and one point along the highway was circled.

"I guess that's where they want us to go," Joe said.

"Take a picture of it and send it to your dad," Ned advised him. "Might as well let him know everything that's going on."

Joe handed him the map. "You do that while I see what Evangeline has left us on the phone." He picked up the smartphone from the glove box. It wasn't locked, and there was a single picture on it. It showed Frank and Nancy sitting side by side on a small cot in a dingy room. Nancy was leaning weakly against Frank, and Frank had his arm around her. Joe shook his head, trying to decide what the intent was with this picture. He swiped the screen to see if there were any more pictures. The next one made him gasp in horror and almost drop the phone.

Ned had been spreading the map out on the hood of the car to try to get a picture, but he stopped at once when he heard Joe gasp and went to see what was the matter. He was alarmed to see Joe with a pale face, staring in horrified stupefaction at the phone.

"What is it?" Ned asked.

Joe didn't answer. Ned asked again, but got no better result this time. Moving slowly, he took the phone from Joe's nerveless fingers and looked at the screen. It showed a mostly empty room with no natural light, and so it appeared very dingy in the picture. Two men were standing over something on the floor. Ned peered a little closer to make out what it was. As he realized, a groan escaped him. It was Frank, and he appeared to be dead.


	14. Chapter 14

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to BMSH, Candylou, max2013, Cherylann Rivers, angelicalkiss, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XIV

Joe wasn't sure whether he was going to have a panic attack or if he was simply going to be sick. For a horrible moment he felt like he'd been backed into a corner with no way out. Then, all at once, his fighting spirit came to him and flared up in a rage. He clenched his fists and slid over to the driver's seat. The key was in the ignition.

"What are you doing?" Ned asked, in shock at the picture himself.

"I'm going to kill them," Joe said through gritted teeth as he switched the engine on. "Give me the map."

"Joe, wait," Ned protested. "You can't do that. We'll talk to your dad and Mr. Drew and Mr. Radley and –"

"Ned," Joe interrupted him in a tone of voice Ned had never heard him use before. "Didn't you see the picture? It's no use. They're going to get us all, sooner or later. It might as well be sooner if it means I can beat the crap out of Terry first." He grabbed the map out of Ned's hands, ripping a corner off it in his impatience. "Stay behind if you want."

Ned jumped into the passenger seat as Joe put the car in gear and sped down the street. At first, he only did because he realized he couldn't let Joe go by himself. Then the full import of the revelation of the picture sank in. Up until right this moment, it hadn't really registered. Of course, he was shocked by the picture, but for the first time, he really understood that it meant that these lunatics had killed one of his best friends. Not only that, but if they'd killed Frank, did they kill Nancy, too? He almost choked on an enraged sob.

Joe was driving well over the speed limit, and it took them only minutes before they reached the spot marked on the map. A little side road came off the highway there. It was unpaved and poorly maintained, and so even in his furious haste, Joe was forced to slow down at least a little, but even so the car shook violently.

"We need a plan," Ned said finally, starting to get a bit of a grip on himself.

"What for?" Joe asked. "I don't have anything to lose."

"Well, I do," Ned told him. "They've still got Nancy – I hope. We can't take any chances until we know for sure."

Joe swallowed hard. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to think sensibly, but Ned had a point. "What's your plan?"

Ned shook his head helplessly. "I don't know." He felt hot tears on his cheeks.

To his astonishment, Joe slowed the car to a stop and switched the engine off. He rested his arm on the steering wheel and leaned his forehead against it as he began to cry. There was an empty place where his heart ought to have been. He still wanted nothing more than to make Terry pay for what he'd done – but then no one could ever pay for all of this.

Ned was feeling much the same, although he was still fighting to hold onto a hope that he could still rescue Nancy. It helped, but there was still a sickening fear for Nancy and a despairing grief for Frank contending for supremacy. He had to just focus on that one glimmer of hope. He needed to think of something, make a plan. If Nancy was somewhere around here, he couldn't afford the time to have a break down. Clearly, Joe wasn't in any frame of mind to think this through. It was all on Ned.

They were obviously walking right into a trap. Or driving into one, rather. Maybe walking would be a better plan. There was heavy forest on either side of the road, and if he and Joe walked the rest of the way, maybe they would go unnoticed. They'd certainly have a better chance of being unnoticed doing that than driving up with the noise of an engine and the glare of headlights. They could scope out the situation and maybe even get the upper hand.

"Joe?" he said gently. "Joe? If we want to rescue Nancy or get revenge on them, either one, we've got to outsmart them. Maybe if we go on foot, we can at least see what's going on."

Joe's whole frame was still shaking with sobs, and he couldn't answer. Every encounter he'd ever had with Terry was playing out in his head. Terry taunting and sneering at Joe before he shot him in the arm; Terry shooting Iola from behind in the dark; that still picture of Terry and another thug standing over Frank's lifeless body. There had surely never been such a despicable human being. Joe didn't even know what Terry had against him and his family. At least Evangeline and Dan's motives made sense. All of that had been rampaging about in Joe's mind since he had seen the picture. Yet slowly but surely, another feeling was supplanting it. He thought of all the adventures he and Frank had had, all the times they'd had each other's back, all the cases they'd worked on together. The thought that Frank was gone filled him with an unspeakable grief. The grief and the anger contended with one another, and Joe thought they would tear him apart.

"Come on, Joe," Ned said. "We've got to rescue Nancy if we can. It's what Frank would want."

HBNDHBND

"Unfortunately, this seals it." Sam threw his jacket onto a chair in disgust. "We must be in the right place. I've never seen such a mess. First, Frank and Nancy, now Joe and Ned. What were they thinking?"

After Fenton had received the text from Joe mysteriously telling him to check out a certain car, Fenton had called Police Chief Collig in Bayport to look it up for him. When the answer came back that the car was registered to Evangeline Moriare and the boys had still not returned nor would they answer calls or texts, the four men had gotten very concerned and went looking for them. They had searched every street of the small town – which wasn't hard – but they hadn't found a trace of Joe or Ned.

"They must have found some clue they're running down," Carson said wearily, not wanting to accept the possibility that seemed most obvious to all of them right now.

Jack Wayne was blunter about it. "Or these fruitcakes have them, too, now."

"I think it's time the FBI get involved here." Sam took out his phone and started dialing the number. "The local police, too. Like I said, this pretty much clinches it. What we need to do is find them before the Moriare bunch can move them again."

"We're not going to just sit here and let the FBI and the cops take over, are we?" Jack asked.

Fenton had been sitting in the corner on one of the hard and uncomfortable armchairs, resting his head in his hands. At Jack's question, he looked up. "No. Joe keeps the GPS in his phone disabled in case anyone would hack into it, but does Ned?"

"I don't know," Carson said, "but I'll bet George could find out."

He found the number in his phone quickly and placed the call. Even though it was late in River Heights, which was an hour ahead of where they were, George answered immediately.

"Hi, Mr. Drew. Any news on Nancy and Frank?"

"We think we're in the right place," Carson told her. "That's all pretty much all we know. I was calling to ask if you could do me a favor, George."

"Anything," she replied.

"Ned and Joe went to run down a clue, and we can't find them now," Carson said. "Do you think you could track Ned's phone like you did with Nancy's?"

"Sure thing," George told him. "It shouldn't even take as long this time since I know what I'm doing now. I'll call you back in a minute."

HBNDHBND

The night dragged by painfully slowly. Clarissa snored contentedly for hours, but Frank and Nancy at best only dozed off. They were too cold, too uncomfortable, too watchful, and too preoccupied to do any more than that. In amongst all the other thoughts going around in her head, Nancy couldn't get her mind off what Terry had said about her mother. After seventeen years – nearly her entire life – Nancy had long since come to terms with her mother's death. She still would become sad and quiet at times, wishing her mother was there or that she had at least had a chance to get to know her, but the pain was only ever a dull ache before. Now it felt as if someone had cut that wound open anew. Nancy thought of Evangeline standing in front of her in the doorway, and she wished she would have knocked her senseless with the aluminum cot leg that she had brought to use as a make-shift club.

Frank's thoughts dwelt on that encounter, too. At least, they did when he could make himself focus on anything. He was having a hard time keeping from shivering uncontrollably, and his skin felt warm to his own touch. He must have been running a low fever. That wouldn't help anything. If it got any worse, it would force Nancy to take complete charge, and she'd have to try to get them to safety, help Frank along, and keep an eye on Clarissa all at once. But it was weird that Evangeline had just let them go like that. Terry and Will hadn't chased them either. There was something wrong with this.

"Nancy?" Frank said finally. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah," Nancy replied.

"What's their game? Why did Evangeline let us go?" Frank asked. "What we were talking about earlier doesn't make much sense, that they wanted us to escape. What could they want?"

"I don't know. I've been thinking about that, too." Nancy crossed her arms in front of her, as much to try to keep warm as to try to think. "Of course, Clarissa wouldn't have come on purpose if they just wanted us to die out here. By the time she led us far enough away that we couldn't get back, she wouldn't be able to get back either. Maybe there'd be a secret place she would go to that we don't know about, but nothing would stop us from just following her."

"You know, it's kind of pointless to just sit here, freezing and pretending to be asleep," Frank said. "Let's just keep going."

"Frank, I'm surprised." Nancy turned around to look at him. As she did, Clarissa, who was leaning against both her and Frank, lost her balance and fell backward, which woke her up, if she had ever been asleep. "We'll never be able to keep our bearings in the dark. If we're not hopelessly lost already, we would be before morning."

"Hopelessly lost?" Clarissa repeated. "What are you two talking about?"

"Yeah, you're right, Nancy," Frank said. "I guess I'm too tired to think."

Nancy frowned. She wasn't entirely convinced that it was a case of merely being tired. Frank had taken a beating not very many hours earlier. He seemed to be all right, but what if he wasn't? They needed to get out of these woods and to civilization of some kind. As soon as it was dawn, they'd head out.

From somewhere in the distance, an animal howled. Clarissa gasped and shrank back between her two companions.

"Was – was it a coyote?" she asked stammering a little.

"I'd say it was probably a wolf," Nancy replied. "Coyotes' howls don't really sound anything like that."  
"A wolf?" Clarissa quavered. "There are wolves out here?"

"Not very many," Nancy said, "but there are a few."

"That's it." Clarissa leaped to her feet. "I don't care what they'll do to me. I'm going back. I'm not staying out here to get eaten by wolves." She bolted off into the woods.

"They're not going to eat you!" Frank shouted after her, while Nancy also shouted, "You're safer here with us than by yourself."

Clarissa ignored them and continued running. Frank and Nancy looked after her in dumbfounded dismay for a moment. Then Nancy remembered her suspicions of Clarissa. She scrambled to her feet and held a hand out toward Frank to help him.

"Come on. We've got to follow her. She might lead us out of here," she explained.

They followed as well as they could, but Frank was stiff from his injuries and the long run into the woods and then sitting still in the cold for several hours. Their progress was much slower than Clarissa's. Fortunately, Clarissa didn't make any effort to be quiet, and they were able to follow the sound of her crashing through the woods.

It was almost completely dark by now. The terrain in the mountains was uneven and frequently became steep without warning. Trees would loom up out of the darkness in front of them all of a sudden and have to be dodged around. There were large rocks, tree roots, and low shrubs everywhere that had to be avoided.

Nancy and Frank were doing their best to get around these obstacles, but the crashing and rustling sounds of Clarissa's flight were getting farther and farther away from them. Nancy sped up for a few paces. All at once, a small ravine opened in front of her. She tried to stop, but she lost her balance and, with a startled cry, tumbled into it.


	15. Chapter 15

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Once again, thank you all so much for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, Candylou, BMSH, angelicalkiss (yes, I do love a good cliff-hanger!), max2013, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XV

As Nancy disappeared from view, Frank felt his heart stop in panic. He peered over the edge of the ravine, but he couldn't see anything.

"Nancy? Nancy, you all right?" he called down into it in fear.

The ravine, fortunately, was only about six feet deep. It was rocky, though, and Nancy had had just enough presence of mind to cover her face and head with her arms to try to protect them. As she tried to pick herself up, she felt bruised all over. Yet she forgot all that when she tried to move her ankle. The pain that shot through it by far overpowered all her other bruises.

"Yeah," she called up to Frank. "It's not deep think I twisted my ankle, though."

Frank sat down on the side of the ravine and saw that it wasn't even that steep. He lowered himself down into it and sat down next to Nancy.

"I guess you were right about waiting till morning," he said.

"I should have listened to myself," Nancy replied.

"Do you think you'll be able to walk?" Frank asked.

Nancy felt her ankle with her fingers. It was already starting to swell. "I don't know. I can't be in any worse shape than you."

"Probably better," Frank said. "My head is killing me. I don't even remember them hitting me in the head. That's not a good sign."

"No, not too good," Nancy agreed. "I didn't see them hit your head, either. It could just be stress and exhaustion and all that." She was worried it was more than that, but there wasn't any use saying so. Frank had obviously already thought of that possibility.

They were quiet for several minutes, the events of the last couple days – or however long it had been; they'd lost track of time – playing over in their minds. Nancy's thoughts kept going back to one subject.

"Frank," she said finally, "do you think it's true, what Terry said? About my mom?"

"I don't think Terry is the soul of honesty, but I don't know why he'd lie about that and it did make sense," Frank replied.

"But Evangeline was only twelve at the time," Nancy reminded him. "Maybe thirteen. A kid couldn't be that evil at that age. Besides, her brothers were a lot older. They were adults then. Why would they listen to her?"

"If there was a twelve-year-old who was completely evil and who had adult guys listen to her, it was probably Evangeline Moriare," Frank said.

"What do you mean?"

"There's something about her," Frank replied. "Something weird. If she was in Salem back in the day, she would have been the first one to get burned. Except she would have convinced them not to do it."

"So you're saying she's a witch?" Nancy was beginning to get even more worried about Frank.

"No." He shook his head. "I don't believe in that kind of thing. If I did, though, I'd think she was a witch. Since I don't, I've been trying to figure out what it is about her. I've been trying to ever since I first ran into her, but I haven't come up with anything."

"I guess I can see what you're saying," Nancy said. "I don't have any answers either. I just hope when we catch her, she doesn't convince the jury to acquit her."

"If we catch her," Frank replied gloomily. "How do you catch someone like that? Especially when we're out here. We've got to face the facts, Nancy – we're in pretty bad shape. We're lost, we don't have any provisions or way to start a fire, and no one has any idea we're out here except a bunch of criminals who want to kill us."

Nancy sighed. Frank was right. They didn't have much of a chance.

HBNDHBND

Joe and Ned walked for almost three miles along the road. They thought that would be the best way to keep from getting lost and that any approaching car would give itself away with headlights in enough time for them to hide at the side of the road. Of course, the car they had come in being parked down the road would be a giveaway, but at least their enemies wouldn't know exactly where they were.

It was a miserable walk. Joe had never felt so crushed. When Iola had been nearly killed, at least he hadn't had time to think about it before he knew she was going to be all right. This time, he had nothing to do but think, and that was the last thing he wanted to do now.

Although it seemed as if they would never end, those three miles finally came to their conclusion. Ned and Joe were greeted by a faint smell of smoke, and about a quarter of a mile later, they saw the dark hulk of a building looming up in front of them. There were no lights in it, but the road ended here, and so it had to be the place they were trying to reach.

Moving stealthily, they circled around the building, but there was no sign of life anywhere around it. When they reached the front of the house again, they stood for a moment and stared at the door, which was hanging open.

"Well?" Ned said finally. "What do we do?"

Joe crossed his arms. "I don't even know. If it's a trap, it's the most obvious trap I've ever seen in my life."

"Okay." Ned nodded. "Maybe they don't know we're here and aren't watching the other entrances. Let's try a window instead."

Joe agreed, and they approached the house with the utmost care. The first window they tried was an old-fashioned one with a heavy wooden frame that pushed inward. There was no screen and the window was unlocked, so Joe pushed it open easily. As silently as possible, he and Ned climbed through it.

It was too dark inside to see anything, but the two young men were hesitant to turn the lights on their phones on. They felt their way along the wall, being careful not to trip over anything, until they came to a doorway. They continued exploring the house in this way until they had gone through the entire first floor, which was built in a circular fashion so that they could walk all the way around it. They had met no one.

Even so, they were still reluctant to turn on any lights. They doubted anyone was hiding in the dark now, but there wasn't any point in taking chances. Nevertheless, they finally had to admit that they would never find anything in the dark. They switched on the lights.

The house was only scantily furnished, and there was nothing on any of the walls. There was a door in front of them. When Ned opened it, they found a staircase leading downwards. There was another door at the bottom that had been left open, and it was sagging on its hinges. The scent of smoke was stronger here.

Ned and Joe glanced at each other before they went down the stairs. They led into an almost completely empty room. The only things inside were the scattered remains of a cot and another half-melted cot with a pile of ashes in its center. Above it was a light socket with a broken lightbulb. Despite these unusual findings, Joe couldn't help but recognize the place with a new pang of grief.

"This is the room," he said quietly. "From the picture."

Ned glanced about him and realized Joe was right. "Why isn't anyone here? Where did they go?"

Joe looked around at the scene, his mind only sluggishly comprehending what it all meant. Finally, after what seemed a painfully long time, it dawned on him. "This looks like an escape attempt. A distraction."

"Nancy?" Ned said hopefully.

"Probably." Joe forced back a sob. "She probably escaped and that's where they all are, out looking for her."

For a moment, Ned's hopes had soared upward, but then he realized that this only meant that Nancy was somewhere in the woods, alone, with murderers trailing her. He grabbed Joe's arm. "Come on. We need to get a real search party to start looking for her."

"Right," Joe replied listlessly.

Ned rushed up the stairs, but Joe lingered a few moments longer, as if remaining in this spot would change what had happened. He hadn't even started up the steps when Ned reached the top.

As soon as Ned stepped through the upper doorway, the overheard light of the front room snapped on. He blinked against the unexpected glare and saw Terry standing in front of him, leveling a gun at him. Ned froze.

"Where's Hardy?" Terry demanded.

Ned didn't make a move or say a word. Evidently, Joe hadn't followed him up the stairs. If Ned could find a way to convince Terry that Joe wasn't there, maybe Joe would get the chance to take the crazed young man by surprise. The trouble was that Ned was a pathetic liar and saying anything at all might accidently give Joe away.

"Well?" Terry asked after a pause. "Can't you talk?"

"Where do you have Nancy?" Ned asked.

"Nancy," Terry repeated with a sneer. "Nancy. Nancy. Nancy. Who cares about Nancy?"

"Where is she?" Ned asked again.

"If it had been up to me, we wouldn't have grabbed her," Terry said. "She didn't do anything. It was the Hardys. It was all Fenton Hardy."

"Okay." Ned bit his lip, thinking. There had been no windows in the basement. Joe would have to come up these stairs to be able to do anything, which meant Ned was going to have to move away from them and get Terry's attention directed as much away from them as possible. That wasn't going to be easy with a gun pointed at him. He tentatively took a small step to the left. The muzzle of Terry's gun followed him, but he made no other move to stop Ned. Even so, Ned felt he shouldn't press his luck anymore for a little bit longer, at any rate. "Okay," he said again. "But do you know where Nancy is? Did you take her away somewhere?"

" _I_ didn't," Terry muttered.

"Who did?" Ned continued.

"She did," Terry said. "But why do care about her anymore? Didn't you see the picture? Or did Gavin mess it all up and not leave the picture on the smartphone?"

Ned furrowed his brow in confusion. He wasn't sure what the picture he had seen had to do with Nancy. "Do you mean the one of Frank?"

"The one of Frank _and_ Nancy." Terry's tone was impatient. "Or didn't Joe show it to you? He probably didn't want to hurt your feelings that your girlfriend liked his brother better than you. Didn't want to show you the hard evidence of it."

Ned rolled his eyes. He honestly had no idea what Terry was talking about, but it annoyed him. It was such a ridiculous thing to try to bring up right now, and Terry couldn't have any reason to do it other than to taunt Ned.

It seemed to wind Terry up, though. "You should have had it figured out by now anyway. At any rate, you should have figured out she doesn't have much interest in you. Always forgetting about dates, standing you up, canceling at the last minute. Oh, maybe you're all right when there's nothing better around. I'd think you'd be tired of playing second –"

"Just shut up," Ned interrupted him. "You don't know what you're talking about. Sure, Nancy misses dates now and then. I tease her more about it than it actually happens. And she only ever does when it has to do with a mystery she's working on. Whenever I've had to cancel a date, it's been because I was studying for exams or got asked to work late. Meanwhile she's been out there saving people's lives and livelihoods. That's part of why I love her, and you're trying to tell me it's why I shouldn't. If either one of us has failed the other, it's me. There's been so many times she's risked her life to help others, and where was I? Pouring over books at the college library. I should have been with her all those times. But she's never even given me a hard time about it. She doesn't try to change me, and I certainly don't want to change her – even if it does mean I have to change my plans at the last minute sometimes. And if it's the fact that we joke about it rather than fight about it that's a problem to you, I don't even know what to say, except that I hope you never have a girlfriend."

Terry frowned dourly. "Well, it doesn't matter now. You're never going to see her again. Now, where's Hardy?"


	16. Chapter 16

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to max2013, Cherylann Rivers, BMSH, EvergreenDreamweaver, and angelicalkiss for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XVI

Joe had been about to follow Ned when he saw the light turn on upstairs. Ordinarily, a sick feeling would have hit him, but right now, he couldn't feel anything more at all. He stayed where he was, automatically weighing the options and realizing that keeping from being caught himself would be the best way to get Ned out of this. With no escape from the basement except the door to upstairs, he would have to stay where he was for the moment.

Then he heard Terry's tones coming from the floor above. Knowing that the person who had done so much to him and the people he loved was so close and was undoubtedly threatening yet another of his friends was too much. He scooped up one of the aluminum pieces of the dismantled cot and would have dashed up the stairs with it, but something held him back just long enough to realize that it would be suicide and that if he wanted Terry to pay, he was going to have to be more careful. He definitely wanted Terry to pay.

He could hear Terry and Ned talking and guessed that Ned was stalling for time. Joe turned the light on his phone off and stood to the side of the door. When Joe didn't come up the stairs with Ned, Terry would probably come down to look for him. If he had a weapon, it wouldn't be too hard to knock it out of his hand as he came through the doorway. After that, Joe and Ned could easily overpower him.

Ned. That was the problem. What if Terry decided to kill him before coming downstairs to look for Joe? That was one detail that he couldn't ignore. He had to find a way to make sure it didn't happen. For a few minutes, he slowed down to think. He could hear Terry's voice more clearly now. His heart started pumping faster, and the aluminum rod slipped in his sweaty palms. He squeezed his eyes shut, and out of the darkness, Terry's voice seemed to morph itself into his taunting words: _"You don't have your girlfriend to hide behind this time."_

"Not now," he whispered. "Please, God, not now. I've got to stop him for Iola and Frank and Nancy and Ned. Please."

He struggled to keep his breathing steady. Little by little, the moment passed. He still felt shaky, but he could do this now. Peering around the corner of the doorway and up the stairs, he saw that Ned was still standing at the top. Ned had moved a little so that he was almost out of the frame of the doorway, but he was also half turned toward it. Joe glanced about at the floor and saw a few small pebbles. He tossed them gently up the steps so that they fell with a soft thud about halfway up.

When Ned heard it, he glanced down the steps. Joe waved for him to come down. After a moment's puzzled glance, Ned gave a barely perceptible nod. Joe hid himself behind the wall again and waited.

"All right," he heard Ned say, "I'll stop stalling. He's downstairs. Follow me."

Joe clutched his make-shift club, trying not to tremble. He had to hold it together just a few moments more. Two sets of footsteps came down the stairs. Ned came first, carrying his phone with the flashlight on. Then Terry appeared, a handgun in his fist. Joe didn't waste a moment.

He brought the club down on Terry's hands hard, and it hit the gun with a resounding clang. Out of both surprise and pain, Terry dropped the gun and yowled. Joe raised the piece of aluminum again, but he saw that it had snapped in two under the impact with the much harder gun. Ned dove in to help, taking Terry down with a tackle. Joe had Terry's shirt gripped in one hand and so he was pulled down with his enemy.

A fury blinded him, and Joe delivered several more vicious blows to Terry's face. All he could think of was Terry shooting Iola; Terry killing Frank. If he'd been allowed, he didn't know if he would have ever stopped.

Ned caught his arm. "Hey, Joe. I think he's knocked out by now."

Joe took in a shaky breath. He glanced down at his still clenched fist with its raw and bleeding knuckles and then down at Terry, whose bloodied face was already starting to swell. For a moment, he felt a thrill of satisfaction, but then the reality returned to him that this didn't change what Terry had done to Iola or to Frank. One bruised face wasn't going to pay for that.

"He didn't really say whether Nancy escaped or they took her away somewhere," Ned said. "Even if he would have said, I don't know that it would have told us anything. He's pretty out of it."

"Did he say whether there was anyone else around?" Joe asked.

Ned shook his head. "No, but I don't think there is. If there was, I don't think they would have let him try to spring this trap by himself."

Joe didn't really answer. He just stood, staring at Terry. Tears were forming in his eyes, and he turned away from Ned a bit to try to hide them.

"Let's find a way to tie him up before he wakes up," Ned said.

He retrieved Terry's gun from where it had fallen on the floor, and then he and Joe carried Terry up the stairs. A brief search revealed a roll of duct tape, which they bound around Terry's wrists and ankles.

"We can't carry him all the way back to the car," Ned commented. "And we can't leave him, and we can't split up, not knowing where his friends are. We can't call out. I already checked and there's no reception out here. What are we going to do?"

Joe shrugged wordlessly. That wasn't much help to Ned. They had to do something. If they just stood around, Evangeline and the others might come back.

As if summoned by that thought, a pair of headlights appeared out the window on the road. Ned groaned and reached over to flick off the light switch. As soon as he did, he realized that that had been a foolish thing to do. Now whoever was driving up knew that there was someone in the house. He debated with himself a few moments, trying to decide whether it would be better to try to run or to try to hide in the house.

The first set of headlights was followed by three more. They stopped in the driveway, and Ned heard doors open and close, but no one came toward the house. Ned furrowed his brow as he tried to make sense of what was happening. Then a voice over a bullhorn explained it to him.

"This is the police," the voice said. "Come out with your hands up."

Ned breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness." He flipped the light back on and let the door open slowly. "Hey! It's all right! It's Ned Nickerson and Joe Hardy!"

There was some murmuring from the direction of the cars. Then several men ran toward him. He recognized Fenton, Carson, Sam, and Jack among the uniformed police officers. His four friends gathered around him anxiously.

"Are you all right, Ned?" Carson asked.

As Ned assured him that he was, Fenton added, "Where's Joe?"

"In the house," Ned told him. "We captured that creep, Terry. I don't think any of the rest of them are still around."

Fenton hurried into the house to see Joe. The others followed soon after. Terry was just starting to regain consciousness as the police officers replaced the duct tape with handcuffs to hold him. Joe stared listlessly at the scene.

"Joe, you okay?" Fenton asked, concerned by his son's demeanor.

Joe looked up at him and nodded, but that was all.

Carson turned to Ned again. "Did you find out anything about Nancy and Frank?"

Ned sighed, and Joe turned his face away so that no one could see his expression. Clearly, Joe wasn't going to explain, and it wouldn't be fair to expect him to, anyway. Ned thought back to the picture he had seen on the smartphone. He wished he could just show it to Carson or Sam so they could break the news and he wouldn't actually have to say the words, but he and Joe had left the smartphone with the car. They had figured there must be some reason an entire phone had been left rather just a printed photo, and using it for tracking seemed a likely as well as dangerous possibility, so they had left it behind. It was probably just as well. As hard as saying the words might be, hearing them would be easier than looking at the picture. All this caused Ned's mind to jump back to what Terry had said about a picture of Frank and Nancy that had been on the phone, evidently in a compromising position. At first, it seemed irrelevant, but then it started a train of thought. Any photo that showed Frank and Nancy in a compromising position was certainly tampered with, outright faked, or was simply not showing what it looked like it was showing. That Ned knew for a certainty. The very idea of doubting Nancy's loyalty was laughable, and Frank was too good a friend in his own right to do anything like that. If there was one picture that was not what it seemed, why couldn't there be two?

"Ned?" Carson asked again. His apprehension at Ned's and Joe's failure to reply was evident in his voice. "What did you find out about Nancy and Frank?"

"Nothing conclusive," Ned replied.

Joe looked up at him in bewilderment. The possibility of the picture being fake or misinterpreted hadn't occurred to him.

"Terry and the others have been trying to make us think the worst," Ned explained. "I think it's reasonable to doubt whatever they have to say."

"Then where are they?" Sam asked, folding his arms over his chest. "They're obviously not here."

"We think they might have escaped and gone off into the woods," Ned said. "Terry could tell us better, if we can get a straight story out of him."

All eyes turned to the prisoner who was sitting on the floor, disgruntlement obvious in his bruised face. "I don't have anything to say," he muttered.

"Look, kid," the officer in charge, Sheriff Lumley, told him, "we've got you on some pretty serious charges here. It might not help you any to tell us what you know, but it certainly won't hurt. At least for the sake of your own conscience, you need to tell us."

"I don't know anything," Terry insisted.

"Sheriff, if they're out there in the woods tonight with no provisions, they're in for a lot of trouble," a deputy spoke up. "The only thing they've got in their favor is that it's not as cold as it could be tonight, but that's not much. We need to get the Search and Rescue out there right away."

"You're right," Sheriff Lumley agreed. "There's not too much we can do in the dark except get organized, but by then it will be almost dawn anyway. After that, we'll scour the woods."

Joe listened grimly as the preparations were made and calls were placed to the volunteer members of the Search and Rescue. He didn't share Ned's optimism at all, and he feared what the searchers would find the next day.


	17. Chapter 17

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to EvergreenDreamweaver, Cherylann Rivers, max2013, and BMSH for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XVII

The search parties set out just before dawn the next morning. There was a total of ten that went out. Fenton, Carson, and Sam went with one, and Joe and Ned with another. Jack had offered to fly the Hardy plane to search from the air. The Search and Rescue team had clearly marked out which areas each party would search and how often they would check in with each other via two-way radio, but there was such a big area to search that they could search for days before they covered it all.

The morning was discouraging. The various search parties checked in each hour, but each time it was a negative report. By the time Joe's party stopped for lunch, they were all starting to feel pretty discouraged. All except for Ned, at any rate. Ever the optimist, he had himself convinced that they would find both Nancy and Frank, safe and sound, any minute.

Joe did not share his optimism. As the others in his party ate their sandwiches, he merely sat to the side, lost in depressing thoughts.

Ned noticed and tried to convince him to eat a sandwich. "I don't want to have to carry you out of here if you faint, you know," he teased him.

Barely listening, Joe merely grunted. His mind was on something completely different. "Why did you say that yesterday? That we hadn't found 'anything conclusive'? You –" He had to swallow to keep from choking on the lump in his throat. "You saw the picture."

"You've been a detective long enough to know how easy it is to fake a picture," Ned told him. "It isn't exactly unbreakable evidence."

"I suppose so," Joe admitted, but he was feeling terribly realistic. "But, Ned, these people are trying to get revenge. Why bother faking a picture of something that's going to happen sooner or later, at least as far as they have planned?"

"I think it's also safe to say that their sanity is questionable," Ned replied. "There's not much point trying to reason out why they would or wouldn't do something. They might do anything."

"Including the worst," Joe said softly.

Ned sighed. Joe had a point, although Ned refused to believe what he said was true. Either way, it didn't look like he'd have much luck convincing Joe. They'd just have to find Nancy and Frank and prove it to him.

After lunch, they kept going for about another hour and a half. About that time, Joe pulled up short and held up his hand to signal the others to be quiet. They all paused to listen, and they heard a faint sound of sobbing coming from a short distance away.

"Nancy? Frank?" Ned called out.

The entire search party headed for the sound. The person heard them and came running towards them. For a moment, even Joe felt a twinge of hope, but then the person came into sight. It was Clarissa.

Tears were streaming down her face as she rushed forward. At once, she flung herself at Joe and wrapped her arms around him. "Oh, thank goodness. Thank goodness," she sobbed.

Disgustedly, Joe extricated himself from her embrace.

"Who is this?" the leader of the search party asked.

"Clarissa Margot," Joe told him. "She's one of this gang."

"Where are Nancy and Frank?" Ned asked her.

Clarissa continued to sob. "Dead, probably. It's been awful. We almost froze to death and we were attacked by wolves, and I've been lost for days."

"You haven't been lost for days," Joe told her sternly. "Maybe one day, at the most. Come on. Give us a straight story."

It was no use. Clarissa just continued to sob and go on hysterically about wolves and poisoned water and freezing.

"What about Evangeline Moriare and the others?" Ned asked finally, deciding Clarissa must not know anything about Nancy or Frank.

That seemed to get Clarissa's attention at last. She stared up at Ned with wide, frightened eyes. "They're not _here?_ " she whispered in a breathless tone.

One of the Search and Rescue volunteers shook her head. "I don't think we're going to get anything more out of her. We'll have to take her back to base."

"We don't all have to go, do we?" Ned asked. "That'll take up a lot of time that would be better put to use continuing to look. Besides, if we found her here, Nancy and Frank might be nearby."

"Possibly," the leader of the Search and Rescue team said. "All right. I'm sure two of us would be more than enough to get her back there. I'll stay out here with Ned and Joe, and we'll keep looking."

The plan was agreed to by everyone. The other search teams, as well as the base at the house that had formerly been Evangeline's hideout, were informed of the new development, and then the search continued.

HBNDHBND

Sam shook his head as he listened to the report about Clarissa over the radio. "What do these Moriare people do to people? I've never encountered such a mess of crazy people in my life. Is failing a psyche eval part of the application to work with them?"

Fenton and Carson listened much more grimly. Each was thinking about his child in the hands of such deranged people, and it had them greatly worried. Their concern was something that could not be easily missed. Sam placed a hand on a shoulder of each.

"If there's anyone who could get out of a situation like this, it's Frank," he said. "I've never actually met Nancy, but I've heard enough about her that I'm sure the same confidence can be said about her. Besides that, they must have escaped. I don't know what else would have caused these people's plan to fall all to pieces like this."

Exchanging a glance with Carson, Fenton shook his head. "Sam, you don't know the whole story about these people. It's a lot more serious than you seem to think."

"Actually, I do know the whole story," Sam admitted. "I told Joe I wouldn't let on that I knew, just in case you didn't want me to, Fenton, but – Well, the story's out now."

"So you know about Mitch Johnson?" Fenton asked.

Sam sobered a bit. "Yeah."

"Then you know why I don't have a lot of hope," Fenton replied.

"Yeah. I understand," Sam said. "Really, I do. I know I don't sound like it, but I really do. The thing is, we don't know anything for sure yet. Until we do, it's not helping anybody to assume the worst."

"Hey, I've got some footprints," one of the Search and Rescue volunteers interrupted the conversation. "Looks like two pairs of hiking boots to me."

The deputy and the other volunteer in the group, who were both well trained in tracking skills, bent down to examine the tracks as well.

"From the size, I'd say they're probably both men," the deputy commented. "It could be more of these criminals we're looking for."

"Well, then, let's follow them and find out," Sam said eagerly.

The deputy nodded. "We're going to need to be quiet and fan out, though. If these are more of the kidnappers, we don't want to let them know we're behind them."

The party moved on noiselessly. It was a slow process following the tracks, as they disappeared from time to time when the ground became less muddy or they crossed over some rocks. Eventually, the tracks led to a dirt trail, where they continued to be plainly visible in the muddy ground. This sped the progress up considerably.

After another three quarters of an hour or so, they spotted smoke rising up out of the trees ahead. The trackers proceeded with caution, until they found themselves standing above a small clearing where a campfire had been built. Two men were sleeping next to it, one on either side.

"Odd place for a nap," Sam commented in a whisper, "unless, of course, you spent all of last night trying to track down a couple of kids in the woods."

"Right," the deputy agreed. "This looks promising. We can't take any chances, though. Let's split up into three groups of two and surround them. And be quiet. This is going to be a lot easier if we don't wake them up."

He and one of the volunteers went to the left, and Sam and the other volunteer went to the right. Carson and Fenton stayed where they were, waiting for the deputy's signal. It was a long time in coming, as he moved slowly to keep from making any noise. Both men were tense as the minutes ticked by.

Gradually, they both became aware of a presence behind them. Fenton and Carson glanced at each other and then turned around. They found themselves face-to-face with a woman – Evangeline Moriare. She held no weapon, but there was something in her demeanor that held the two men as surely as if she had them at gunpoint and kept them from calling out.

"How did you find us?" she asked. "I had meant to ask Joe and Ned that, but I didn't get the chance. I had a plan that would get you to figure out where we were, but I never got the chance to put it into practice."

Carson found his voice first. "Where are Nancy and Frank?"

"I don't know," Evangeline admitted. "It doesn't really matter now, though. You'll never see them again, and that has always been the main thing."

"But they're alive?" Fenton asked, not sure he would believe her answer when she gave it.

"For now, as far as I know," Evangeline said. "If they are, maybe I'll let them live. You both know by now that sometimes living can be much worse than dying."

Her spell seemed to fade for a moment, and Fenton remembered the handgun he had at his side. He pulled it out and pointed it at her.

"You're not going to have any choice in the matter now," he told her. "You've as good as given yourself up."

Evangeline gave him almost a pitying smile. "How exactly are you going to stop me from just walking away? Are you going to kill another unarmed person? Maybe in the back this time? I would think that after living with that for seventeen years, you wouldn't want to repeat it."

Fenton bit his lip. She had a point. If worse came to worse here, he didn't think he'd be able to shoot.

"You see what I mean about living being worse than dying sometimes," Evangeline said. "You can't tell me that you don't wish sometimes that it would have been you that had been killed instead of your partner. And you, Carson, I know you would much rather have had it be you instead of your pregnant wife. It would have even been better for Nancy all these years to have had a mother and a sister."

Carson's only response was to look away.

"I was there that night when you killed my brother, Fenton Hardy. I was there the night my father was killed, too." Evangeline's tone became harder. "I know what it is to have your world taken away from you, destroyed, and then have the cruelest trick of all played on you – to have to live with it. That's been my plan all along. To destroy both of you in every way I could and let you live with it. I did it in ways neither of you even realize. What I didn't expect was for you to seem to forget about it all those years. That's why I decided to either kill Frank, Joe, and Nancy or destroy their lives, whichever I could. I didn't think you'd recover from that. I still don't, but my plan is ruined now. I have to change it."

"Why are you telling us all this?" Carson asked.

Evangeline smiled slightly. Her right hand disappeared under her jacket. Fenton tensed. His mind flashed back to that night, seventeen years before, when he saw Cliff's hand disappear into his jacket. He froze, his finger on the trigger. The moment dragged into an eternity.

Then a shot shattered the stillness of the woods.


	18. Chapter 18

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you so much for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, BMSH, angelicalkiss, max2013, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XVIII

The shot echoed through the woods like a crack of thunder. Evangeline swayed, a shocked look on her face as all color drained from it. Then she fell in a crumpled heap.

Fenton looked down at his gun. He knew he hadn't pulled the trigger. Carson had been taken by surprise just as much. There was a shout from down below, where the two men had been woken up by the sound of the shot. Fenton and Carson turned to look over their shoulders, but the deputy had already made his move. The criminals, taken so completely by surprise, surrendered without putting up a struggle of any kind.

Then the lawyer and the detective turned back toward Evangeline Moriare's fallen form. Their bewilderment only lasted a moment longer, for they saw Sam making his way towards them from a little rise above them, his face ashen and his gun still in his hand.

"You guys okay?" Sam asked, his voice shaky.

"Yeah. Are you?" Fenton replied.

Sam gave a very nervous laugh as he sank down into a sitting position. "I'll tell you that when I can breathe again."

The deputy came running a few moments later. "What happened here?" he asked, taking in the scene.

"This is one of the leaders of the gang." Carson nodded at the fallen woman. "She was threatening Fenton and me, and Sam shot."

"I caught a glimpse of her while I was getting into position," Sam explained rapidly. Nervousness always made him talk a lot and quickly. "I followed her back here, and I saw the whole thing. She was reaching for a gun under her jacket. I know Fenton has a strict let-the-other-guy-shoot-first policy, but sometimes that's too late. I wasn't going to just stand here." He stopped to catch his breath, his whole frame shaking.

The deputy merely nodded in acknowledgement. He crouched down next to Evangeline and felt first for a pulse. Finding none, he pulled back her jacket a few inches. That was enough to show her hand still clasping a gun.

"You feeling okay?" the deputy asked Sam.

Sam rested his head on his hand. "Not really."

Fenton patted him on the shoulder. "You didn't have any choice, Sam. Carson and I would probably both be dead if you'd hesitated."

"He's right," the deputy agreed. "When you've got a situation like this, you don't have a lot of time to think, and wasting time is a good way to die."

Sam nodded vaguely, not yet in a frame of mind to take much heed of what either Fenton or the deputy said. But Fenton took it in and found the burden he'd been carrying around all these years eased just a little bit.

HBNDHBND

Nancy tried to flex her ankle, but it was so swollen by now, it could hardly move. She ran her hand through her hair to get it out of her face. What were they going to do now?

It had been daylight for several hours already. She and Frank were still sitting in the bottom of the ravine. She couldn't climb out of the ravine, not with her ankle twisted the way it was. At least, she hoped it was only twisted. For as terrible as it felt, she was afraid it might be broken. Frank had finally fallen asleep when the morning sun had warmed the place a little, but Nancy kept waking him up to make sure he was all right. Although neither of them said so outright, they were both concerned that he might have a concussion.

It was such a weird scene. There were green trees and grass all about, birds were singing, and the air had the fresh feeling of spring turning into summer. Somewhere nearby, Nancy could hear a stream babbling. Despite all of that, she and Frank were here, unable to walk and weak from their injuries and not having had anything to eat for at least a couple days. They had no water now, either, as the bottle had been broken last night when Nancy had tumbled into the ravine. She supposed that if they needed to, they could probably get as far as the stream, as long as it wasn't at the bottom of a cliff or anything. It would be a little more bearable if someone at least knew that they were out there and were looking for them.

The day dragged on into the early afternoon. From somewhere up above, Nancy heard the drone of a plane's engine. It grew louder, and Nancy realized it must be flying low. She shook Frank awake.

"We need to find a way to signal that plane in case it flies over here," she told him.

"Right," Frank agreed.

They looked around them for something they could use to make themselves more visible. Frank's eyes fell on the broken pieces of glass from the bottle. There were three large pieces and the rest was shattered. Pulling his coat off, Frank used it to cover his hand as he picked up the biggest piece. He moved it back and forth and was satisfied to see it catch the bright May sunlight. Following his lead, Nancy also picked up a piece of glass and began flashing it quickly in the sunlight.

The drone of the plane grew louder. A moment later, it flew overheard with a roar. Frank stared at it, dumbstruck.

"What is it?" Nancy asked, noticing his astonished expression.

"It's Dad's plane," Frank said.

"Are you sure?" Nancy stared after it, but it was already too far away to see anything distinguishing.

"Positive. I'd know that plane anywhere."

"Then that means they know we're out here," Nancy said. "The plane's probably looking for us!"

HBNDHBND

"I wonder if that's all of them," Ned commented, after hearing over the radio that more suspects had been captured and a third had been killed. Of course, no further details were given over the radio in case there were people listening who didn't need to know names.

"I hope so," the leader of the party said. "We don't need people like that running around in the area. It's too bad they didn't also find Frank and Nancy. Well, let's keep going. We've still got a lot of area to search."

Twenty minutes or so passed as he, Ned, and Joe continued on in their search. Then the radio crackled to life again. It was Jack Wayne's voice coming over it this time. "I've got some flashes of light that look like an SOS," he reported. Then he gave the coordinates of the place.

"That's about three miles from where we're at now," the leader said after checking his handheld GPS. "We're the closest. Let's go check it out."

For the first time, Joe felt a bit of real hope, and this was all Ned needed to be absolutely convinced that they were about to find their friends. They hurried forward eagerly and covered the three miles in record time.

"These are the coordinates. We must be close now," the leader told them. "Let's start calling."

At the top of their lungs, he, Joe, and Ned shouted over and over again, "Nancy! Frank!" Every few moments, they would fall silent to listen for some reply. The longer they went without hearing a response of any kind, the more anxious and discouraged they became.

Then, finally, so faint they could just barely make it out, they heard voices calling, "We're here! Over here!"

Ned and Joe broke into a run, using the cries to find their direction. In a few minutes, they saw a small ravine ahead of them. They skidded to a halt on its edge and looked down.

"Nancy!" Ned slid down the side of the ravine and picked Nancy up in an embrace, kissing her as he did.

Joe followed him with a thrilled cry of "Frank!" He grabbed his brother in a hug, saying, "I thought for sure you were dead."

"So did I for a while there," Frank replied. He stole a glance at Ned and Nancy. "Thanks for sparing me the kiss."

Joe laughed. "I'm not _that_ glad to see you," he teased him.

Nancy returned Ned's kiss and then said, "I should have known you'd find me."

The Search and Rescue man had fallen behind Ned and Joe a short distance. He now appeared at the top of the ravine. "Are you two all right?" he asked.

"We've been better," Frank admitted. "Nancy hurt her ankle, and I've got a few bruises that will take a little while to heal."

"Can you walk?" the man asked.

"I probably could if I had to," Frank said, "but I don't think Nancy can."

Ned picked Nancy up in a bridal carry. "I'll carry you back," he offered, making Nancy blush.

"You weren't willing to carry me," Joe reminded him with a grin.

"No offense, Joe, but I don't exactly feel the same way about you as I do about Nancy," Ned returned.

"Thank goodness," Joe replied.

"Is Dad here?" Frank asked.

Joe nodded. "Dad, Sam, Mr. Drew, Jack, we all came. The others are with another search party. Jack's flying the plane. He's the one who spotted you."

"We spotted him," Frank said. "I knew it was Dad's plane."

The Search and Rescue man radioed the other parties that Frank and Nancy had been found. Because it was such a long distance to walk back for them, the sheriff said that he would call for a larger neighboring county to send their rescue helicopter to pick them up. They just needed to get to a place that was clear enough for the chopper to land. They found one without having to go too far, and the Search and Rescue man called in its coordinates. Then the whole party sat on the ground, talking and laughing excitedly.

It wasn't long before the helicopter arrived and picked them up. It delivered them to a hospital where Nancy's and Frank's injuries were examined. Nancy's ankle was broken, but fortunately it was a minor fracture. Frank's injuries were less serious. He didn't have a concussion after all, and the doctor told him he should be completely back to normal in no more than a week.

Fenton and Carson, along with Sam and Jack, met them at the hospital. Sam, Fenton, and Carson still had to give their statements concerning the shooting which would undoubtedly be an ugly affair, but given the circumstances, the sheriff let them go to see Frank and Nancy first. The reunions were joyous, as it seemed unbelievable to any of them that Frank and Nancy had been gone for barely four days.

When Fenton, Frank, and Joe had a minute by themselves, Joe placed a video call to Laura. Fenton had already called her to tell her the good news, but she nearly started crying while she talked to Frank, who assured her over and over that he was all right.

"It's nothing some sleep and some good food won't cure," he told her.

"I think we can manage that." Laura smiled broadly. "When are you coming home?"

"We'll have to see about that," Fenton said. "There's still some wrapping up to do here, but I promise you, we're not going to stay here a day longer than we have to."

When he finished talking to his mother, Frank borrowed Joe's phone to call Callie privately. She had already heard from Laura that Frank had been found, but she still nearly shrieked in delighted surprise when she unexpectedly heard his voice on the other end of the line.

Meanwhile, Nancy, Ned, and Carson had been talking while they waited for the doctor to be ready to put a cast on Nancy's ankle. Ned was telling Nancy all about the search.

"You're a pretty good amateur detective yourself these days," Nancy told him. "Maybe you should get a private investigator license, too."

"Maybe I should," Ned replied.

Carson gave a mock sigh of disappointment. "Doesn't anyone want to be a lawyer these days?"

"Sorry, Dad." Nancy grinned.

After a few more minutes, Carson began to get the feeling that Nancy and Ned wanted to be alone. He made an excuse and left the room. Ned watched him go, and then held out his hand to Nancy. She placed her hand in his.

"I hope we never have to go through something like that again," Ned said.

"Definitely," Nancy agreed. "I guess we'll just need to stay closer together."

"Nancy." Ned let go of her hand and reached into his pocket to take out the velvet box that had remained there too long already. In one motion, he got out of his chair and onto one knee. "I never want anyone to take you away from me again. Will you stay with me forever? Will you marry me?"


	19. Chapter 19

J.M.J.

 _A/N: Thank you for reading this story! Thank you especially to BMSH, Cherylann Rivers, max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, Candylou, and sm2003495 for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XIX

 _One year later_

"Are you nervous, Nancy?" Bess asked as she helped to adjust her friend's veil.

"I think it's the rules that you have to be nervous on a day like today," Nancy replied.

"I don't know what there is to be so nervous about," George replied as she held the mirror that Nancy was looking in. "You like Ned, don't you?"

Bess rolled her eyes. "You are so unromantic, George."

"It's more like an excited nervous." Nancy smiled.

"You'll understand sometime, George," Bess told her, twisting the engagement ring on her own finger.

"Hopefully not for a little while," George said. "Burt and I aren't ready to be old, boring married people yet."

Nancy and Bess exchanged a glance and shook their heads.

"Absolutely incorrigible," Bess said.

A year had passed since Ned had proposed, but he and Nancy had decided to wait until he finished college for their wedding. It had been at the same time the longest and the happiest year of their lives so far. The fact that the Moriare case was finally closed once and for all was not the least of the reasons for it.

Gavin and Will, the two henchmen that had been found by the campfire, had confirmed that there was no one else left who was involved in the plot, other than Dan Moriare. Evangeline had had him imprisoned in a secret place in New York, but the two henchmen were more than willing to tell exactly where it was. Dan gave himself up readily, saying he'd rather be in jail than where he was. He had shed no tears over his sister's death. Clarissa and Terry were still in the process of being tried, but it looked pretty definite that they would be spending a very long time undergoing psychiatric treatment in prison.

It had taken time after that to sort the whole story out. Gavin and Will had been merely hired thugs, and they knew next to nothing about what had been going on. All they knew was that Evangeline and Terry had had a violent disagreement after Frank and Nancy's escape and everything seemed to be falling apart at that point, so Gavin and Will had headed out on their own, only to be captured the next day. They insisted that they didn't know why Evangeline had been nearby when they had been captured. All they could do was conjecture that she must have followed them, suspecting that they would leave a trail that Fenton Hardy and Carson Drew would follow, allowing Evangeline to complete her revenge. Another possibility was that she may have simply been following Carson and Fenton.

With Evangeline dead, the entire story had to come from Dan, Terry, and Clarissa. Dan had never been deep in Evangeline's counsels and so there was a great deal he didn't know, and Terry and Clarissa's precarious mental states made their stories difficult to follow or to even tell if they were true. In the end, the most coherent story that could be pieced together was this:

Randy Moriare, the father of Cliff, Dan, and Evangeline, had been down on his luck when his boys had still been teenagers. In order to make some extra money, he had begun running errands for the Irish Mob, particularly under a man named Devin Matthias. Moriare, however, had not been satisfied with the comparatively small amount he was earning. Whenever he was carrying money, he had begun taking some of it for himself. The thefts had been discovered by Matthias' right-hand man, Kyle Norris, who had pieced together what was happening with the help of Brian Donahue and Simeon Margot. Matthias ordered four of his subordinates – Jack Garnier, Kyle McDonald, Greg Kelly, and Hunter Pierce – to eliminate Moriare, which they did by throwing him in a river tied to a piece of concrete.

After his father's murder, Cliff Moriare had taken it on himself to find out exactly who was responsible and make sure they pay for their crime. It had taken him six years to figure it all out. Within that time, Norris had fallen out of favor with Matthias and had been replaced by Donahue and Matthias himself had been arrested and served some time and just recently been released. Cliff planned his revenge carefully. Having a flair for the dramatic, he had intended to model the murders after Sherlock Holmes stories, which was largely inspired by the similarity of his last name to that of Holmes's arch-enemy, James Moriarty. Despite her young age of twelve at that time, Evangeline had been raised on her mother's and older brother's hatred for these six men and was enthusiastic about the plan, even taking a hand in the planning under Cliff's coaching. Only Dan was reluctant about it. He had been in more than his share of trouble as a boy, but now that he was older, he was hoping to go straight. Unfortunately, he didn't feel that Cliff had left this option open to him, and so he cooperated with the plot for revenge, albeit reluctantly.

Matthias had been the first to be killed, mimicking the murder in the Holmes case _A Study in Scarlet_. Next had been Norris, whose death had been inspired by one of the murders in "The Five Orange Pips." After that, Cliff had run into unexpected opposition in the form of two police detectives named Fenton Hardy and Mitchell Johnson and an intern from the DA's office, Carson Drew. Their investigation had put them so close on Cliff's trail, that he had had to abandon the revenge plot for the moment, allowing his other intended victims the opportunity to escape New York, except for Garnier and McDonald, whom Cliff killed in a shooting. Desperate to get their pursuers off the case, Cliff, Dan, and Evangeline had discussed their options. Cliff had suggested simply killing these three, but Evangeline, who was already the most devious and cruelest of the three, recommended destroying them through their families instead. She suggested killing Kate Drew and Laura Hardy, as well as Mitch Johnson's parents, as he had not been married. Because Kate had already returned to River Heights, Cliff hired a hitman to go back there.

Fortunately for their other intended victims, at least, Cliff had never had a chance to get to them. Fenton and Mitch – with some unexpected help from Carson – closed in on them too fast for that. When Fenton and Mitch had finally cornered them that last night, Cliff had abandoned Evangeline finessed plan to simply gun the two officers down. His mistake was entrusting Dan to kill Fenton. Dan had never been hardened enough to support murder, and he couldn't bring himself to kill Fenton. Instead, he had fled, which allowed Fenton the chance to retrieve his gun and face Cliff down for the final time. Cliff had returned to his apartment to tell his wife, Joy, and his sister to get ready to leave. He had set the gun he had taken from Mitch on a counter, and so he had been unarmed when he had come out of the apartment and found Fenton Hardy in front of him. Evangeline had screamed to distract Fenton and had heartlessly taken the opportunity her brother's death had provided to escape, a dazed Joy following with her two-year-old son Terry in her arms.

Dan gave himself up later that night. Irene Moriare, the mother of the three Moriares, had already been in ill health, and the shock of one son's death and the other's arrest had caused what remained of her health to deteriorate completely and she died less than a year later. Joy had been of a similar mindset to Dan. She changed her name to Shanth, desiring to keep her son from learning anything of his father's misdeeds. Her kindness proved to be her undoing, as she could not bring herself to leave the now-orphaned Evangeline to the foster system. Evangeline, from the beginning, had launched into a program of poisoning her impressionable nephew's mind against his father's "murderers." Finally, Joy despaired of ever being able to do anything for Evangeline and had kicked her out as soon as the girl had turned eighteen, an action which embittered Evangeline against her.

Evangeline spent her time plotting to finish what her brother had begun, and also to get her revenge against Fenton Hardy and Carson Drew, as well as against Joy. She had studied acting and make-up and found she had a natural talent for both, as well as for being persuasive. This last talent had caught the attention of a psychologist with questionable morals, who had begun by making a study of her. She, in turn, had persuaded him to teach her everything he knew about influencing people's decisions. Through natural talent and hard work, she had honed the skill until she had perfected it. It came in very handy as she laid the groundwork for her plot.

Fenton Hardy had gone back to his hometown of Bayport by now. Brian Donahue, Simeon Margot, Greg Kelly, and Hunter Pierce, after being forced out of New York, had formed their own gang, separate from the Irish Mob. By an odd coincidence, they had chosen Bayport to be their new headquarters. Evangeline had secretly gotten in touch with Terry, who, she found, was still eager to avenge his father. Between the two of them, they convinced Joy to take her son to Bayport, as well.

With all the piece now in place, a new obstacle had arisen that could have ruined all for Evangeline – Terry unexpectedly developed a crush on Simeon Margot's stepdaughter, Clarissa. Terry had almost backed out of the plan because of it, until he had learned that Margot abused Clarissa and that she hated him for it with a hatred that rivaled Evangeline's. As a result, they gained a new ally because of it.

After Dan was released from prison, Evangeline approached him to help her with her revenge plot. While in prison, he had sworn to never get involved in something like that again and had refused. Nevertheless, Evangeline had hired several men who had been rivals of Donahue back in his Irish Mob days. They had murdered Donahue, Margot, Kelly, and Pierce according to some of the various murders in Shakespeare's _Macbeth_. Evangeline had used the book connection as a tribute to Cliff's original Sherlock Holmes plan. The plan also originally included killing Laura, Frank, and Joe Hardy, but Terry had had little patience for the elaborate plot. Consumed by hatred for the Hardys, he tried to kill Joe on two separate occasions. This divergence from the plan had resulted in the arrest of Evangeline's hired assassins and had forced her to put the plan on hold, for the moment. Before she did that, though, she got her revenge on one other person she hated – her sister-in-law, Joy. By now, she had poisoned Terry's mind so completely that she was able to convince him to murder his own mother, telling him that Joy's weakness had been partially responsible for Cliff's death.

A few months later, Evangeline had tried a similar plot against Carson Drew. She used _Le Morte d'Arthur_ as bait to lure Nancy into an elaborate trap, again as a tribute to Cliff's Sherlock Holmes plan. Another unexpected difficulty arose during this attempt, as well, as Robert Worthing was in the River Heights area, masquerading as Robin Hood. Thinking this might mislead Nancy, Evangeline tried to recruit Robin, but he had no interest in joining them. By this time, Evangeline had succeeded in forcing Dan to go along with her plan at least partially. However, Dan changed his mind, and with his and Robin's help, Nancy had eluded Evangeline's trap. To punish the two men, Evangeline had imprisoned Dan and made sure the police captured Robin, making it look like Nancy had turned him in after promising not to as an added bit of revenge.

After that, Evangeline had taken two years to let Fenton and Carson stew for a while. She knew that, although her plan had ultimately been unsuccessful so far, neither of them nor their families had come through it completely undamaged. Then she had had Frank and Nancy kidnapped and taken to Clarissa's former home of Sackville, Colorado. Clarissa had told her about the painting she had given Callie Shaw, and Evangeline had had it tracked down and the name of the town put on the back of it. She had intended to use this and a few other obscure clues to lead Fenton, Carson, and Joe to Sackville, but she had not counted on Joe figuring it out early. Then, Frank and Nancy had escaped with Clarissa's help, another thing Evangeline hadn't bargained on. Worse still, she had done nothing to stop them, as she had been unarmed, outnumbered, and taken by surprise. This shook Terry's confidence in her, and he set out on his own, which was the final blow to the plan, which was ended permanently with Evangeline's death.

"Burt and Dave don't mind that we asked Frank and Joe to be the groomsmen instead of them, do they?" Nancy asked. She'd been asking the same thing for months, and she couldn't help being worried about it.

"Nah," George assured her. "They get it. Between Ned and Frank being fraternity brothers for the last three years and everything that's happened in the last few years."

"And they know you wanted a small wedding party," Bess added. "Having them be ushers works just fine."

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," Nancy called.

Carson opened the door and came through. Nancy stood up and gave him a tight hug. As she let him go, Carson had to wipe his misty eyes.

"You look perfect, Nancy," he said, choking up a little. "Except for one thing."

He handed a jewelry box to Nancy. When she opened it, she found a cross-shaped pendant necklace that sparkled in the light with imitation diamonds.

"I know it's not an expensive necklace," Carson told her, "but your mom and I didn't have a lot of money when we got married."

"Mom wore this at your wedding?" Nancy asked. Her own eyes began to tear up. When Carson nodded, she reached up and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks, Dad. I wouldn't want to wear any other necklace today."

As Carson fastened the clasp for Nancy, Joe looked into the room.

"Hey, you look stunning, Nancy," he said before continuing, "It's time to get started. No one's going to let you live it down if you're late to your own wedding, Nance."

"Well, we wouldn't want that," Nancy replied, still smiling.

As the wedding party arranged themselves – Bess escorted by Frank and George escorted by Joe and Nancy and Carson coming last of all – Carson wiped another tear from his eye. Nancy squeezed his hand.

"Don't cry, Dad," she told him.

"I was just thinking," he replied. "I wish your mom and your sister were here today."

Nancy touched the necklace she was now wearing. "They are."

The ceremony went flawlessly, though Nancy and Ned had to take everyone else's word for it. They were both too nervous and excited to take in everything. Then, after the pictures were taken and the reception started, they had so many people come up to congratulate them that they still couldn't quite take in the moment. One guest in particular caught Nancy by surprise as he came to congratulate the couple.

"Why, Robin!" Nancy said delightedly. "I didn't know if you'd come."

"I didn't expect an invitation," Robert Worthing admitted. He gave a teasing grin. "I'm probably the only guy you've ever busted who's here."

"Except I didn't bust you," Nancy corrected him.

"Yeah, I think I've been pretty well straightened out on that," Robin replied.

"What have you been doing the last few months?" Ned asked him. "No more robbing people, I hope."

"No, I've given up on that," Robin said. "As a matter of fact, I've been volunteering at some of those same charities I was criticizing pretty heavily. I still don't agree with the amount of overhead that goes into them, but I've given them some ideas to cut down on that, and they've actually taken some of them. So maybe they're not so unreasonable after all. As for a job, that's not too easy to find when you're an ex-con. I was pretty lucky to get a job with Tristam Oil. I won't pretend I don't know it's because you put in a good word for me with the manager of our branch, Nancy. Thanks for that."

"It was the least I could do," Nancy told him. "Anyway, Jim Archer's a good friend of mine, and he knows I wouldn't recommend someone who wouldn't do a good job."

"What about you, Ned?" Robin asked. "I hear you just graduated from college. Do you have a job lined up?"

"Not exactly," Ned replied. "Actually, I'm going to be hitting the books again for a little while. I'm going to take a training course and apply for a private detective's license. Then we'll open the Nickerson and Nickerson Detective Agency, I guess."

In another part of the reception hall, Carson was talking to Fenton and Laura. After revolving mostly around pleasantries, Carson asked about Sam Radley.

"Nancy and Ned invited him," he said. "Is he doing all right?"

"Much better than I was doing a year after my first encounter with – those people," Fenton replied. "He's maybe a little more steady-going than he was in the past, but that's probably not a bad thing."

"Especially now," Laura added. "He's got quite a family, and it keeps growing. His wife is expecting their third. That's why they didn't come. She's due in about six weeks, and they didn't want to travel."

"Well, that's a pretty good reason," Carson said. "And what about you? Everything still going all right?"

Fenton knew Carson was talking about the aftermath of the Moriare case. It had been a long time, but he had finally come to terms with it. What had happened with Sam and Evangeline had been tragic, but in a way, it had been the turning point. It had forced him to reevaluate what had happened all those years ago with Cliff Moriare. It had been a horrible mistake, but a mistake that he could not be blamed for making, given the circumstances. He took in a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah. It's okay."

"And you?" Laura asked Carson. "Frank told us about what that Terry kid said to him and Nancy, about Kate."

Carson glanced away to where Nancy and Ned were greeting their guests. Nancy looked so much like Kate now, and she was so much like her in so many ways. He thought back to the day when Nancy had tearfully told him that Terry had claimed Evangeline had engineered Kate's death in order to get Carson off the case. He and Nancy had talked it over thoroughly that day. It had been like reopening a wound they had thought long-healed. Given Evangeline's boast that she had tried to destroy Carson's life in ways he didn't eve realize, they had been inclined to believe it.

"It doesn't really matter," he said now. "The police thought it was a drunk driver. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that she's gone and it's because of someone else's selfish decision. And whichever the case, the person responsible has certainly paid a heavy price for it. It's more important for Nancy and me to remember who she was than to worry any more about exactly what happened that day."

Their conversation was interrupted by the announcement that dinner was ready. Nancy and Ned, along with their families, their wedding party, and the significant others of each member of their wedding party were served first. As they were taking their seats before the food was served, Callie came up to Nancy and Ned and gave each of them a hug.

"I haven't had a chance to congratulate you yet," she said.

"Thank you," Nancy replied. "I know. It feels like there's a million people here."

"Then we must have some party crashers," Ned teased her, "since we only sent out about a hundred and fifty invitations."

Nancy grinned at him and then turned to Callie again. "We're really glad you came. I know it maybe wasn't the best date in the world for you, since you only just got out of school for the summer."

"I wouldn't have missed it for anything," Callie assured her. She looked at Frank, who had come to stand at her side, as always. "Especially since it means getting to see Frank a little sooner." Her smile gave way to a slightly more serious expression. "I've never gotten a chance to thank you both, either, for what you did last year. Frank tells me he doesn't think he would have made it without you, Nancy, and you were a big help in finding him, Ned."

"Cal, there's no need to bring that up today," Frank told her.

"I just wanted to thank you both," Callie said again.

Nancy smiled and hugged her again. "It's all right, Callie."

"Besides," Ned added with a smirk, "it just means Frank owes us one. A pretty big one."

Frank shook his head and joined in the teasing. "You see, Cal. That's why there's no need to bring it up."

"It doesn't change the facts," Ned insisted.

Nancy rolled her eyes in amusement. "I think the facts are that we're even on this one."

"Now we've really done it, Callie," Frank said, shaking his head in pretend shame. "We've caused their first disagreement."

Nancy and Ned looked at each other and smiled.

"I don't think this one will be too hard to settle," Ned replied. "My wife's right, of course. We are even."

At hearing Ned call her "my wife," Nancy felt a renewed thrill of excitement rise up within her that lasted all through the dinner and far into the rest of the evening.

As for Joe, he spent the entire evening close to Iola, who didn't seem to mind in the least. In fact, he was so focused on her that he didn't realize when it was time for the toasts after dinner. As they were preparing for the toasts, someone opened a bottle of champagne with a loud pop at the main table. At the unexpected sound, Joe caught his breath and felt his heart race for a moment.

"Hey, it's all right." Iola rubbed his shoulder, noticing his reaction at once. "It's all right, Joe."

Joe spent a few moments focusing on controlling his breathing. Gradually, he felt his heart rate return to normal and he managed a shaky smile.

"Thanks," he said. He picked up a glass of water and looked at the contents for a moment. Then he looked back up at Iola. "You know, they say I might not ever recover completely. It must be kind of a drag being with a guy who freaks out over a champagne bottle being opened."

"I don't mind," Iola assured him. "I'll keep you just the way you are."

The evening passed quickly, and soon it was time for the first dance. Nancy and Ned felt a little self-conscious at first as they walked out on the dance floor with everyone's eyes on them. But as they held each other and danced, everyone else seemed to fade away. For the first time, it really came home to them – their old lives were over, and they began a new life today, a new life with even greater adventures than they had had before.

 _A/N: Once again, thank you so much for reading this story, and possibly the first two stories in the trilogy. Thank you especially if you have favorited or followed this story. The support means a lot to me. The biggest thank you of all goes to everyone who has left reviews on previous chapters: angelicalkiss, BMSH, Candylou, Cherylann Rivers, EvergreenDreamweaver, max2013, sm2003495, and various Guests. I love to read your reviews and I always get excited whenever I get a notification that one has been posted!_

 _I don't have any plans to continue this particular series at the moment. From the beginning, I just intended it to be a trilogy. Of course, it didn't go exactly the way I thought it would, but that's part of the fun of writing. However, I do have ideas for several stand-alone stories and there are two that I have actually begun writing. They both need a lot more work, but I'm hoping to begin posting one of them within a month or two. Until then, thank you all so much for your support!_

 _~hbndgirl_


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